Binary Uplift
by Locutus2262
Summary: A WALL-E prequel series, telling about the events that started with the "trash crisis" and led to the humans' exodus from the Earth. Second place in EVE94's contest.
1. Prologue

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**Introduction**

Greetings to all!

This is my first attempt at a fanfic, and in fact the first time since like 15 years that I'm writing anything fiction-like. I hope you'll like it!

I'm not a native English speaker, but I shall do my best so that your giggling about my bad English does not distract you too much from the story. :)

I quite liked the background setting of the movie WALL-E. And being a huge fan of Isaac Asimov's short stories and writing style, I thought I'd do a series of short story like episodes which deal with the "big garbage crisis", i.e. the events between roughly 2100 when the Earth's cities started to drown in trash, and the story of the movie itself. The episodes will deal with different aspects of what happened in this period, and what led to several striking events and also minutiae of the movie.

The episodes are self-contained but will of course present a linear flow of events. I will try to put one or more punchlines at the end of each episode, hoping that my attempts at following Asimov's example will work out.

Note: do not be surprised if the meaning of the series' title does not really become obvious during the first episodes. If all goes as planned, it will be revealed about halfway through the series.

Alright, here goes nothing.

**Prologue**

There is a theory that every interactive, self-regulatory system, once it has reached a certain level of complexity, undergoes a cycle of crises. Some systems show a longer interval of stability between crises, some a shorter. The two most prominent examples for such systems on the Earth, that is the planet's ecosphere as a whole, and human society as a highly complex subset, were no exceptions to this assumed rule.

While in most cases the system in question is able to avoid collapse and outlast the problematic times out of its own strength, using whatever is left of its normal state of stability, every once in a while there is a crisis so profound that something more is needed. This something can be sheer luck, it can be what believers like to call divine intervention, but every once in a while it is an event so extraordinary that no one who has not personally witnessed it will be able to believe it.

The Big Garbage Crisis that humanity faced in its twenty-second century was a model example of the latter case.


	2. Working To Dig Us Out

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**Introduction**

The first episode tells the story of two BNL employees, a roboticist and a truck driver, who are occupied with deploying WALL-E units in the "garbage grand centrals" of the large cities. It takes place roughly at the beginning of the crisis, before Operation Cleanup was in full effect.

It presents some background information on what has led to the garbage problem and the thoughts of the two employees on the subject. A foundation is laid for later events, leading up to the movie. The end contains punchlines and movie references, see if you can find them. :)

**Episode**** 1: "Working To Dig Us Out"**

The sun slowly ascended over the reddish-blue horizon. Its warming rays illuminated a scene of beautiful serenity, a wide, green, grassy field, speckled with the occasional flower. McCrow was unsure if he knew what kind any of those flowers were, but that sure did not bar the bees and other insects from buzzing from blossom to blossom, collecting whatever they needed for their hive. A line of nearby trees announced the beginning of a forest, soft rustling noises coming from their leaves. If you kept very quiet, you could even hear the almost inaudible rushing of the distant sea, which he figured had to start just behind the horizon.

McCrow liked what he saw and heard, and with a little smile he decided to see if he could find the shore. It had been quite a while that he had a stroll along a nice warm beach. His journey took him across the meadow, and McCrow could make out several more flowers of unknown kinds, before the distant shoreline came indeed into view. With anticipation he directed his path towards it.

"Now will you _look_ at all this mess!"

With a sigh, McCrow looked up and turned off the interactive holoprojector. Immediately the beautiful scenery was replaced by the interior of the huge transport trailer in whose unattractive, windowless storage compartment he was actually sitting. So much for my beach trip, he thought. His colleague's distinct statement probably meant that they were approaching their destination, Quadrant 6, Los Angeles. Yeah right, he thought, as if there was anything angelic left about the place. He put the remote control onto the projector shelf, removed the holodisk and put it back into its case with a second sigh, noticeably more annoyed than the first.

This time we messed up really good, he thought. The only way to see a green meadow or have a walk along the beach now was on holovision. And that was barely a worthwhile substitution for the real thing.

Shaking his head, he felt the urge to check out what particular mess his colleague was complaining about. As he stood up and walked towards the door to the driver's cabin, McCrow's view crossed the neat rows of small, boxed robots, painted in yellow and black tones, quietly and inactively sitting in their tiny square rack spaces. Hundreds of them. Another platoon of brave mechanical soldiers, fighting to dig us out of this mess, he thought. And the two of them were about to take that platoon right onto the battlefield.

McCrow pressed the contact plate that opened the cabin door, and as he stepped through, he could not escape a little feeling of doubt about whether their mission had any chance of being successful in the first place.

– – –

"Are we there yet, Mike?"

"Almost. E.T.A. 30 minutes." To McCrow's surprise, he found his friend and colleague, Michael Anderson, in the driver's seat, steering the bulldozer of a trailer manually. Its powerful engines rumbled continuously, and the uneven road made the vehicle rock uncomfortably from time to time, despite its huge weight.

"What's with the autodrive?" McCrow inquired.

"Won't work, due to all this trash on what was once the Interstate. The environment recognition can't tell what is road and what is rubbish."

McCrow looked out through the front windscreen. He had to agree that the ratio of trash to clear road was among the worst here of all the routes they had done together. Los Angeles obviously was top of its class, in more than one aspect. This kind of sight did not exactly help to alleviate his feelings of futility.

"So it's another 30 minutes, then? That gives me some time to finish my holomovie before I have to fire up the Central Control Unit pre-operation checks."

"Living in the past again, eh Dave?" Anderson joked.

"Well yeah, it's better than having to watch the present, to be honest."

"I know what you mean. I can't really decide what annoys me more. The fact that it is us who must take these monster trucks down here into the biggest mess, while most of our co-workers are having a good time aboard the Excelsior, or the fact that it was our common employer who got us into all this in the first place."

"Some get lucky and some don't, I guess. And considering that our employer is the _only_ employer out there, I don't see much of a choice anyway." And there was the feeling of doubt again as McCrow added, "But look at the bright side. Maybe Operation Cleanup is a success, then we will be heroes."

"Yeah, the heroes that drove the trucks. Come on, if this really works, then Shelby will be the real hero, and everyone forgets that without his damned greed no Operation Cleanup would've been necessary."

McCrow smirked. "You are an even bigger pessimist than I am, you know that? Anyway, here's another bright side: one more tour, then our Cleanup shift is over, and it's our turn to enjoy some good time on the Excelsior!"

"Indeed, yeah! That's more like it. By the way, have you heard about that new luxury starliner they're building? What was its name? Had something to do with woodcutting. Axe... Axy... Axiom, yeah. What a dumb name for a spaceship. I looked that word up on the Net, and I still have no clue what it means."

Again McCrow smirked. "You see, that's why I'm the roboticist here and you're just the truck driver. Want me to explain it to you? An axiom is a basic, unprovable thesis in a scientific..."

"Alright, alright, spare me your life's story, smarty-pants." Anderson interrupted him.

Of course McCrow anticipated this reaction, since they used to tease each other in this or a similar fashion regularly. Hence instead of getting mad, he just put on a broad grin. "But you're right, it _is_ a dumb name for a spaceship."

"See. Now go play with your waste loader gizmo robots, and let me do the driving. You don't want us to have an accident, otherwise the loaders ain't loadin' anything."

McCrow laughed. "Okay, race driver. I'll go check on the CCU, and if there's time left, I'll finish my living-in-the-past, before the dirty and dusty present catches up with me."

McCrow left the driver's cabin and stepped back into the storage. He checked up on the console of the robots' central control unit. All in the green. All units fully charged and ready to go. The artificial lighting immersed the compartment in a ghostly ambience. I'd really like to know why they didn't build any windows into here, McCrow thought. But then again, robots in standby don't really need daylight, do they. And the human being that works here is just personnel. I'm really sighing too much, he thought as he turned the holoprojector back on and continued his travel across the meadow, towards the ocean.

– – –

"_Initiate Startup Sequence"_, McCrow typed into the control unit's console. Actually he hated using a keyboard console to operate computers, it was so slow and outdated. But apparently the designers of these trucks had deemed a speech input-output interface, just like the windows, an unnecessary luxury.

"_Confirmed. Pre-power up checks in progress"_, came the reply. Just a few minutes now and the units would be ready to roll.

The door to the driver's cabin opened, and Anderson's voice could be heard. "Hey Dave, E.T.A. five minutes. How's it coming with the robots?"

The truck made another skip from the uneven road, causing McCrow's hands to jump across the keyboard, hitting several unwanted keys. "_Unknown directive, please state again."_

"It'd come better if our sailing was a little smoother, Mike!" he called over to Anderson.

"Yeah, you tell that to those stacks of garbage cubes out here."

McCrow looked puzzled. Garbage cubes? He was under the impression that no WALL-E units had been operating in this quadrant yet. Well, probably some stragglers from another quadrant. It happened from time to time that the area coding of a WALL-E went awry, causing the robot to stray out of its assigned region.

The motor of the storage rack started whirring as it began a slow rotation. Row after row of little cubicles, each inhabited by a cube-shaped robot, passed through McCrow's view. This was part of the pre-power up checks, allowing the operator a visual inspection of all units before they went into action.

The WALL-Es, or _Waste Allocation Load Lifters, Earth-Class_, were basically little mobile trash compactors, a cubical chassis rolling on two treads, with a binocular-shaped head, stereoscopic cameras built-in, and two grapplers for arms to pull the garbage into the compaction chamber. At the moment they were in their "boxed up" state, which meant their heads and limbs were retracted into the cube, thus saving space when in storage, aside from protecting them against environmental hazards, like the ubiquitous sandstorms. Their job was to reduce the sheer volume of trash, clearing the roads for bigger vehicles, and to stack the little cubes they made onto towers, which were later processed in incineration plants. McCrow smiled a little. Even if trash compactors were not the cutest of all imaginable robots, he still liked them. He was a roboticist, and all robots were his babies. Square babies in this case.

"_Checks complete. No problems detected. Ready for deployment."_ wrote the console. As if this had been the cue, the rumbling of the trailer's engines suddenly changed pitch as the vehicle started slowing down. Not that it was going overly fast to begin with, but McCrow was still thankful that another uneasy ride to a trash-infested quadrant was complete.

The trailer came to a halt, and with a loud metallic noise the rear door slowly lowered, changing into a ramp for the robots to roll down on. Anderson stepped in from the driver's cabin. "Alright, here we are. Ready once more to make the world a little cleaner." As they both walked down the ramp, McCrow was blinded momentarily from the bright daylight, after having spent so much time in the fluorescence-illuminated trailer.

– – –

They were standing on a deteriorated road in what once was a district of Los Angeles. Now it looked more like a crossover of an old Western town, a giant overflowing landfill and the remainders of a war zone. The buildings were abandoned, partly crumbled, layers of sand everywhere. Banks, malls, office premises, residentials, it all looked like right out of a movie ghost town. One of the few things that still worked though was a giant viewscreen, showing in colorful images and accompanied by a blaring voice the advantages of a cruise on one of Buy-n-Large's luxurious spaceships. _"Too much garbage in your face? There is plenty of space out in space!"_

Anderson watched in disgust. "The planet is drowning in trash, and no one cares to turn off those commercials. I'll bet my last dime that those will still be getting on people's nerves in like what, seven hundred years?"

"I doubt that any of our technology could stay operational for such a long time without maintenance. Anyway, did they already decide whether they'll build a full-featured incinerator field here, or just bring in some of those mobile ones?"

"No idea, but with the amount we're dealing here, even two full plants wouldn't do the trick inside their five year timeframe." So Anderson too was beginning to experience a growing pessimism.

"Alright, I'll get them up and running," McCrow said and stepped back into the trailer.

"_Begin unit deployment",_ he typed into the console. "_Confirmed"_, and immediately the whirring noise of the storage rack motors filled the trailer again. But this time the rotation stopped whenever a row of robots touched the ground. A humming could be heard as twelve WALL-E units simultaneously came to life and extended their treads a little, so they could roll out of their cubicles. Once they were free, they fully deployed their heads and arms with buzzing sounds from their motors, turned around toward the door, and rolled out in an orderly line. Then the rack continued its rotation to deploy the next row, which stoically joined the line of their comrades.

Anderson watched from the outside as the procession of trash compactors wheeled past him, grouped up and then moved towards their programmed destination areas. "That's right, little fellas. Do your work as advertised, and dig us out!" he said.

– – –

An hour later, McCrow was standing on the trailer ramp, overlooking the surroundings. At each accumulation of trash within sight a group of WALL-E units was busy scraping load after load into their compaction chambers and, after contracting and re-expanding, neat cubes of trash were spilled out. That is, if you wanted to be so bold as to use that adjective for garbage. At each accumulation – and there truly were more than enough of those.

How could all this have happened? McCrow had lost count of how many times those thoughts had run through his head. How could a world both so rich of lush green vegetation and strewn with settlements bustling with activity turn into a wasteland? Well, this is what a few decades of reign of a ruthless and untamed consumer society, paired with – or being the cause of? – a galloping change in environmental conditions can achieve. The oceans were mostly still there, and a few lone green spots were said to exist on the eastern continents, but that was about it.

The larger cities had been the first to lose control of the litter situation. Fun first, future later, that seemed to have been the motto of the new ideology that could best be described as consumism. "The landfills were full, New Jersey was full," McCrow remembered an episode from the umpteenth rerun of an old animated TV show from a hundred years ago. That show played nine hundred years in the future, and had its "New New York" nearly destroyed by the impact of a giant garbage meteorite. Aside from the missing astronomical aspect, we only needed a tenth of the time to complete that endeavour, he thought grimly.

And then came BnL with their ingenious plan. "We'll clean up the mess while you're away!" Away on their star liners, for a five-year cruise. If you could afford it, of course.

The insistent beeping of the control console's caution-and-warning signal jolted McCrow out of his thoughts. He spun around and hastened into the trailer. As he reached the console, Anderson entered from the driver's cabin.

"What's the problem?" he asked. McCrow checked the console.

"Hmm, seems we got ourselves some stragglers here. The robot group assigned to sector A-113 is leaving the area westwards."

"Programmed them wrong?"

"Nah, their area coding appears to be intact. It would seem that the ambient grid situation is mismatching that of the last survey."

"What do you mean, some houses have moved during the last weeks? Come on, this isn't the Dark City," Anderson joked.

McCrow commented the reference with a grin. "Not exactly moving houses, but it is possible that a larger accumulation of trash that was blocking some roads during the survey has now been blown away by the sandstorms, making the roads at least partially accessible again, while blocking off others. That may be enough to throw the WALL-Es' area coding off the track."

"Not too bright, those guys, huh?"

McCrow felt a little insulted, though he knew Anderson meant no harm. "Well, with BNL on our backs we didn't have quite the time to create a marvellous A.I. for the robots. They're very rudimentary, as nothing more was needed for trash compactors on wheels."

"Can't you just reprogram them now with the new road situation?" Anderson wondered.

"I could, but not remotely. I'd have to recall them to the trailer and have them dock into their cubicles." McCrow looked at the console, which showed a stylized overview map of the quadrant. It was just fourteen robots, out of many hundreds, that were leaving the area. It would take longer to bring them in for reprogramming than just letting them roll and work elsewhere. Sooner or later every last part of the city would have to be cleaned anyway.

– – –

Anderson came walking up the ramp into the trailer to find his friend sitting at the console once more. "Just got a message from our Transportation colleagues, they'll be here in fifteen minutes to pick us up."

"That's good, just in time, I'm about finished here. They won't need to wait for us this time." McCrow was busy with the last preparations to put the CCU into remote-controlled mode. "_Perform Comms Check"_, he typed into the keyboard. "_Communication with OCHQ verified, no problems detected"_, came the reply. Okay, just the usual authentication procedure now, and then the Operation Cleanup Headquarters would be able to control all functions of the trailer remotely.

Just as he was about to enter the necessary commands, the caution-and-warning beep sounded again. "Ach, what now?" He switched the console into map view and let it zoom in on the group of straggler WALL-Es which were now working in an adjacent sector. McCrow watched with disbelief as one of the dots indicating the robots strayed off from the others and moved along a street between two decayed skyscrapers.

"Little guy, where are you off to now? Stay with your friends!" Of course the robot could not hear him, and since the other members of the straggler group showed no further signs of odd behaviour, he decided to ignore the problem and continue with the procedure. "_Initiate Remote Control Mode"_ he typed, and after a final confirmation, the console screen turned dark. The trailer was now being operated from the headquarters. He was no longer needed here.

Together with his colleague, McCrow stepped down the trailer ramp, and after they were both on the ground, he reached for a lever at the side of the vehicle's back. He pulled it, and the ramp begun lifting up, motors whirring loudly. A few seconds later the door slammed shut and the motors turned off.

"Oh by the way, who is coming to pick us up this time?" he asked his friend as he let his eyes wander over the groups of robots which were busily wheeling all around them. This was always a bit of a sad moment, having to leave his babies behind to do all the dirty work for them.

Anderson grinned. "You're gonna like this. I've asked Jim and Frank from Aerial Discovery." The trailer they took here had to stay in place as a command relay center and storage base for the robots, and no one could expect them to walk all the way back to OCHQ. So they were picked up by two colleagues with vehicles that were usually way faster and surely way more attractive than the bulldozer in which they came. And while the "more attractive" part was hardly difficult to achieve, this time it was going to be a real treat.

"You're kidding me!" McCrow exclaimed. Aerial Discovery had, due to the nature of their missions, the fastest and most maneuverable vehicles of all departments at their disposal.

"Nope, no kidding. Look there!" He pointed at the two white spots in the sky that quickly came closer. Half a minute later the double-seated aerial gliders, each manned with one of their colleagues, came to a halt and hovered a few meters away from them. The canopies opened and Jim greeted them with a grin. "BNL taxi service, please take your seats, fasten belts, stop smoking et cetera, you know the drill."

McCrow looked at the gliders in amazement. With their gravitic drives, the crafts, which were just hovering there as if hanging from invisible strings, could easily reach supersonic speeds, while their passengers barely felt any acceleration. Still their engines were almost silent. The gliders were about seven meters in length and had a sleek, distinctly egg-shaped form which gave them very good aerodynamical properties. The white, polished, plastic-like shell added to their appealing look.

Anderson and McCrow boarded the rear seats of their vehicles. As the canopies closed and they silently rose into the air, they cast a final look over the garbage battle field that once had been Los Angeles. McCrow's thoughts wandered momentarily to the lone straggler robot, but before he could wonder too much what the little guy might be doing now, his craft accelerated and he concentrated on enjoying as much as possible the rare occasion of riding in an _Aerial Discovery Mobile_, also known as _AD-M glider._

– – –

_Directive A-001: Collect Trash._ The little robot extended his grappler arms, lowered them and pulled another load of garbage into his chest.

_Directive A-002: Compact Trash._ The robot contracted, sending shudders through his every cog and gear.

_Directive A-003: Eject Trash._ The robot released the contraction and let the cube of garbage tumble out of his chest.

_Directive A-004: Stack Cube._ He seized the cube with his grapplers and started wheeling towards the trash tower which he freshly started about half an hour ago.

The robot did not wonder at all why he was working alone in this part of the city, while his co-workers were all grouped up many blocks away. _Collect trash. Compact trash._ Nor did he wonder why there _was_ garbage everywhere and why he was stacking it onto towers. _Eject trash. Stack cube._

As one heap of waste was finished, the robot rolled to the next. _Collect trash. Compact trash._ The ground was too uneven here to continue the previous tower, so he started a new one. _Eject trash. Stack cube._

None of his directives instructed the robot to take any notice of _what_ he was pulling into his chest. _Collect trash._ And so the little green seedling that peeked out between the remainders of the city's practised consumism did not make any difference to him as he scraped it towards himself with his grapplers. _Compact trash._ The little plant was squished and shredded, together with all the other things that the once proud society of opulence had produced, and the only thing that remained of it was an entry in the robot's event log, flagging it as having been an _"unusual object"_.

_Eject trash. Stack cube._


	3. One Small Step For A Man

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**Episode ****2**

**Author's Notes**

This episode deals with a problem concerning the processing of the trash that the WALL-Es are stacking, a suggested solution to it and it brings the preparation for a later chapter which will deal with why and how exactly the Earth's atmosphere got contaminated.

The idea to this story was inspired by an Isaac Asimov short story, the ongoing discussion about the potentially dangerous experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, and some physics facts from my astronomy study.

It is a little heavy on the science and dialog side, maybe people who like "technobabble" will enjoy it most, but hey, I like such stuff (as I said, Asimov…) and I just **had** to implement my idea. :) Still there are a few references to minutiae from the movie which will be picked up again later on.

Promised: the next episodes will have more movie references, and also more action. Episode 3 e.g. will deal with the background, construction and testing of the EVE probes.

"**One Small Step For A Man"**

There cannot be any doubt that two great minds, one being that of a theoretician, one that of a practitioner, can achieve great things when working together. All throughout human history it had been this combination that led to real progress, and especially in times of a crisis like the one at hand, mankind was dependent on people who came up with new ways of looking at things and solving problems, and on people who made these ways come true.

Jacob Ross was a shiny example for the first kind, a two-times Nobel prize winner for his research in the field of quantum physics. Cameron Preen on the other hand had an aptitude for turning just any blueprint into an operable device with whatever resources were available. Both of them had been working out of Fermilab, the former particle accelerator near Chicago, spewing out by the dozens new ideas and gadgets both to make everyday life easier and to bring forward fundamental research.

Given the present time's more pressing needs, Alexander Trump, in his capacity as the chairman of Operation Cleanup, was happy and fortunate to be able to resort to Ross' and Preen's productive output.

With great interest Trump was reading a message he received from Preen which suggested a possible solution to the problem of inefficient garbage processing. It had just been a week that he had contacted Preen and explained to him that the incineration plants were in grave need of improvement of both capacity and cleanliness.

The WALL-E robots were working remarkably well, not only due to the insane amount of units that had been produced and put into operation. Considering just the stacking of compacted trash onto towers, they would probably be able to fulfil their five-year goal. The problem though lay with the incinerators that processed the stacked garbage. They were time-consuming to produce, their capacity was not up to par to process the WALL-Es' cube output, and their exhaust fumes were not exactly fit to enhance health and needed to be processed before they could be released into the atmosphere. All that took way too long, so the math on the five-year limit simply did not check out.

Therefore the message from Preen sounded too good to be true, quite like a miracle solution, but Trump knew that it would not have been the first miracle to come out of Fermilab, especially since the results were based on theoretical work by Jacob Ross. So he gladly accepted the invitation to join them for a first demonstration, scheduled to take place one week later, of what could become the new method of choice for garbage processing, and at the same time, the generation of new raw materials.

Trump made arrangements for a trip to Fermilab with Transportation and requested to be taken there in one of their fabulous Aerial Discovery gliders. He really liked those neat flying plastic eggs.

– – –

Preen entered the research lab where his colleagues were busy evaluating the data received from their latest series of experiments. "We got a reply from Trump, he accepted to come over and see our work in action for himself!" he told them, barely able to hide his excitement. "Though I doubt he understood any of the tech I tried to explain in my message, we will simply _show_ him what we can do. You know what that means; we must be ready for the demonstration as scheduled."

His words caused a euphoric mood to spread among his fellow scientists as he asked them to show him the test results. He looked at the data that was presented in a diagram on a computer screen. It was almost a straight line, except for some occasional bumps. He nodded contentedly as his colleague stated, "We're as good as there. The remaining irregularities can positively be compensated by adjustment of the field parameters."

Preen agreed, and after encouraging his colleagues to keep up the good work, he left the lab for his office. There he contacted Jacob Ross, who was working at home at the time, using his holophone.

"Jacob, hi," he said as the screen lit up and his old friend appeared, as usual brooding over books and papers. "Trump accepted, we'll show him the transducer in one week".

"Hmm." came the reply. Jacob used to hmm a lot, usually indicating that a pause for reflection was imminent. He truly had a great mind, but it needed its time to properly process input, and produce a worthwhile output. "You shouldn't have contacted Trump yet. We are rushing things here."

"Jacob, come on, we've had this dispute before. The transducer works, you've seen the data, our problems out there are pressing, it's time to put what we have worked for so long to good use."

"Yes, the transducer works, in lab experiments, but we have not yet considered all possible repercussions. This is a field of research that has never been done before and needs more testing before we go to wide scale application. We do not want to make things any worse than they already are."

Preen sighed. "As usual, the pessimist. You always were, and ever will be. How about this: we demonstrate what we have to Trump, you can tell him your concerns and we let him decide if it's worth taking the risk, if there is any."

"Hmm. Well, fair enough. My point stands, and under different circumstances I would more severely advise against this, but alright." And he added with a little irritation, "I hope Trump won't be as irresponsible as you are."

Preen decided to not to dwell on Jacob's last statement as he replied, "Okay, I'll see you in a week then."

He cut the connection, and the screen faded. The old fool, he thought. He really wants us to withhold the solution to this crisis, just for his theoretical concerns. I don't intend to allow this. There is _always something_ that can go wrong.

His intercom sounded, and a message from his colleagues requested him to join them in the lab.

"Look at these points of data, they make a beautiful line now. I'm all confident we will be ready on time!" Indeed the diagram line was now almost perfectly straight.

Preen replied, "Fantastic. Just as we hoped, the two processes cancel each other out completely. Yes, I agree, we will be ready in time."

– – –

"Alright gentlemen." Trump's view swept over the group of scientists that were assembled in one of Fermilab's conference rooms, Jacob Ross and Cameron Preen presiding. "I must admit that I did not understand too much of what Mr. Preen tried to explain to me in his message, other than that you claim to have a solution for our trash problem. So could you please outline again what I'm going to see, in layman's terms?"

Preen took the initiative. "All in layman's terms will be a little difficult, but I'll do my best. Mr. Trump, have you ever heard of the Philosopher's Stone?"

Trump looked puzzled. "My apologies, I have not."

"In the times of the old alchemists it was believed to be a miraculous tool, able to convert any metal, especially lead, into gold. Well, since those times, our understanding of the inner workings of the universe has improved considerably, and I'm proud to say that we have in fact found that Stone."

Trump's puzzlement changed to a slight amazement as Preen continued. "The alchemists back then did not know that what makes an element an element is a matter of nuclear physics, rather than chemistry. The number of protons in an atom dictates if we have lead or gold. 82 protons, lead. 79 protons, gold.

"Turning lead into gold is therefore just a matter of splitting three protons from each atom. However, aside from radioactive elements like uranium, atoms are very stable, and it requires insane amounts of energy to smash them apart. That is why we needed the giant particle accelerator rings, to bring the atoms close to light speed."

Ross felt that the ball was in his court now and took over. Although his aim still was to convince Trump of the dangers involved in the new technology, he was a scientist, and proud of his achievements, so he just had to cast a good light. Also they had agreed on doing the demonstration together, and he was going to keep his end of the bargain.

"Mr. Trump, you might have noticed Mr. Preen's use of the past tense in his last sentence. My latest work on quantum mechanics comes into play here. Consider this: besides the commonly known forces of gravity and electromagnetism, there exists another fundamental force in the universe: that which binds the components in an atomic nucleus together. We call it the strong nuclear force. Now, if you managed to create an energy field that counteracts the strong force – you could dismantle _any_ atom, not just uranium, splitting it into elements with fewer protons."

And the ball was passed back to Preen. "Based on the theoretical findings of my colleague, and using the resources of Fermilab, we succeeded in building a device which accomplishes exactly that, creating what we call an anti-gluon field, and which does not exceed, in size or energy consumption, your average household microwave oven."

The formerly slight amazement on Trump's face turned first to disbelieve as he looked Ross and Preen in the eyes. It took a while for him to realize that they were not kidding. His mouth opened, but before he could utter anything, Ross interjected.

"And not only that. Dismantling atoms is only half of the truth. Think about the reversion. Fusion of atoms also requires amazing amounts of energy to overcome the _repelling electromagnetic_ forces between them. By counteracting those forces we can achieve nuclear fusion in that same oven-sized device, which we have named a Transducer. In short, we can convert any element into any other, as we see fit. This includes converting the trash out there into usable raw materials, instead of just burning it up."

There was a long moment of baffled silence before Trump spoke again. "Okay, gentlemen. Before there are any further words, I would very much like to actually _see_ what you just claimed."

– – –

On their way to the transducer lab they passed, in addition to multiple security measures like retinal scanners and the occasional old combination keypad, several areas and chambers filled with complicated apparatuses. They aroused the impression that one needed at least two doctoral degrees to be able to operate them. Trump decided that it would probably be better for his mental health if he did not know what crazy things the scientists were working on there. It seemed more and more like a miracle to him that they had not yet managed to implode the universe or do something similarly groundbreaking.

A little while later they were assembled around the transducer experiment, which at the moment still appeared a little larger and more complicated than the microwave oven Preen had promised. While the central reaction chamber indeed could pass as a microwave, it was connected to a plethora of instruments sitting in a rack against a wall, with the usual array of keys, knobs, dials and levers. Although Preen had assured him that this was just the prototype, Trump figured that scientists just _needed_ this kind of a setup, at the very least to impress outside visitors.

While his assistants prepared the instrument wall, Preen open the reaction chamber door. It looked like he intended to continue the Philosopher's Stone reference as he produced a little block of a bluish grey metal and put it into the chamber. Furthermore he put in a little lump of bright yellow crystals which emitted a faint odour, not unlike that of match heads. Before Trump could inquire what this was for, Preen said, "Don't be surprised that I'm setting an amount of sulphur aside the lead. It will be explained shortly."

The chamber door was closed and then the bubbling noise of a vacuum pump could be heard. Preen explained that the chamber for now had to be evacuated so that as few foreign atoms as possible, like the nitrogen and oxygen from the air, remained inside.

Trump's anticipation reached its peak as a gauge in the rack indicated the completion of the evacuation, and one of Preen's assistants signalled that the transducer was ready to go. Just before he activated the device, Preen informed "Don't worry about any radiation effects you will see, it's just harmless visible light."

Some switches were flipped, and a distinct electrical humming from the instrument panel accompanied the beginning of the transformation process. Despite Preen's warning, Trump jumped a little as an intense, circularly pulsing blue light emitted from the chamber. It was a beautiful if slightly eerie effect, almost as if the chamber was surrounded by a blue miniature version of Saturn's rings, but the scientists did not appear to be troubled by it.

"Even if I'm not supposed to be worried: what is causing the light?" Trump asked.

"It's a side effect emission particular to the conversion process," Preen replied, which sounded to Trump remarkably like a "we have no idea". He had to admit that this fact worried him more than the light itself. He made a mental note to bring it up again later.

The blue light and humming subsided as suddenly as they started. The whole process had taken only about twenty seconds. The chamber was re-pressurized with a loud hiss, and as the door was opened, the lead and sulphur had been replaced by three blobs of metallic material. Aside from two ominous silvery white to grey ones, there was one that had a definite golden tint.

Trump's mouth fell open. "I'm assuming that you're not pulling my leg here and have some hidden trapdoor in this machine or something. But allow me the question, why are there three lumps of material?"

Ross had anticipated Trump's bewilderment and replied, "this as well will be explained shortly. For the moment, let me just tell you that if there _weren't_ three lumps, we all would have been vaporised by now, along with probably the whole Fermilab complex."

– – –

"Gentlemen, please. One thing at a time," Trump said as their discussion ran the risk of getting a little too spirited. He was sitting together with Ross and Preen in an office space, as they had decided to take further deliberation to a more private environment. "I understand from your abstract that there are considerable risks involved with this new technology, Mr. Ross?"

Trump pondered the explanations the scientists had given after the experiment, back in the conference room. Ross' remark about vaporisation of the complex had of course left him white-faced for a while. The lead had been split into gold and lithium, and splitting atoms normally released considerable amounts of energy, as proven by nuclear power plants, or – even more impressively – by atomic bombs. That energy had to have gone somewhere, since Fermilab had, obviously and luckily, not been vaporised. It went into the sulphur, which was split into aluminium and lithium. Though this sounded strange, it still worked, because for reasons way beyond Trump's understanding splitting atoms heavier than iron _released_ energy, while splitting atoms lighter than iron _required_ energy.

Due to Ross' genial work, this double-splitting occurred in combination, and only in combination. So there was no danger of a catastrophic energy release, rendering the process very safe, at least in this one regard. Still, Ross had serious concerns. "Indeed there are, Mr. Trump. Unfortunately I cannot give you any _concrete_ risk at this time, but an explicit warning that we still understand too little about possible side effects of the conversion process, and it should not yet be put into large-scale application. Give us some more time, and we'll give you a transducer that is as safe as it can possibly get."

"How much time do you estimate you'd need?" Trump looked a little set back, he still hoped to solve the trash problem in time.

"About a year of research and experimentation. Then we can say if the transducer is ready for mass production. Science cannot be rushed. Please, Mr. Trump, be reasonable, for the good of our planet." Ross replied, which made Preen utter a sound of annoyance.

"Your theories maybe cannot be rushed. But this is not the time for theory, it's the time for action. The transducer works as advertised, and we promised the people we'd have this dump cleaned up when they return from their five-year trips!"

A good point, Trump had to admit. It would appear that the world was soon done for, and he could not see how it could possibly get any worse if they tried the transducer method. "So I take it you'd suggest immediate large-scale deployment?"

Preen looked at Ross, who looked back, wordlessly begging him to be reasonable. "Yes, Sir, I do," he replied.

– – –

So the decision was made. Trump had returned to Operation Cleanup Headquarters, where Ross' concerns had been taken into consideration, but ultimately had been disregarded.

Mass production of transducer chambers begun the next week. Calculations were made on how many transducers of what size would be necessary to process all the trash in the allotted time frame, taking into account the speed at which the WALL-E units prepared their cubes and how fast they would be able to haul the resulting raw materials away.

The Fermilab engineers managed to considerably reduce the size of the transducer control instruments. Although the result was still larger than oven-size, it could without difficulty be integrated into the WALL-E storage trailers. Also the focussing capabilities of the anti-gluon field emitter was improved, thus eliminating the need to evacuate the chamber before the trash could be converted.

One by one, the crude incineration plants which had been processing the trash so far were replaced.

It took several months to complete the campaign, but eventually it was done. Trump, Preen and Ross were personally overseeing as the last transducer plant was being set up. Watching conveyor belts transport trash into the chamber and neat lumps of precious raw materials roll out, it all looked like a huge success.

"Well, look at this," Trump started, "it seems we have that one small step for a man all over again."

Ross was still sceptical. "I very much hope you are right. Still I can't help but wonder whether the giant leap will take mankind out of this pit, or right into the abyss."

Trump watched the transducer in action for a while longer. Then something odd struck him. Something was different than in the experiment he had witnessed at Fermilab, but he could not really put his finger on it.

Then he realized. There was _no blue pulsing light_ emitting from the reaction chamber! Recollection struck him. He had forgotten to inquire Preen and Ross about this phenomenon before making his decision.

He mentioned his observation to the two scientists, wondering how they could not have noticed. They did not say a word, but the sheer puzzlement even on Preen's face told Trump that the imminent giant leap would probably not be getting them out of the pit. At least not right away.


	4. Search for Extra Terrestrial Vegetation

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**  
Episode 3**

**Author's Notes**

This is the first of five episodes in the "Prototype One" plotline, dealing with the "birth" and early adventures of the first EVE prototype.

The series turned out quite differently from what I had initially planned. It went through multiple iterations, chains of events have been changed as I was writing it. One could say that it has developed while it was developed. :)

First and foremost, it has become so long (over 27.000 words) that I split it into five episodes. Thus it consists of episodes 3 to 7 of Binary Uplift.

**Caution:** This mini-series is about emotions, about happy times and tragic events. The chains of argumentation presented therein may not always be 100% logical. The author would like to ask you to generously overlook that fact and just enjoy the ride. _Story trumps rules._ ;)

Thanks to **Unreal.2K7** for ideas, brainstorming and proofreading!

**  
"****Search for Extra Terrestrial Vegetation"**

(Episode 1 of **"Prototype One"**)

_Directive A-0-14: Proceed to next grid square._

The white probe robot was gliding smoothly over the surface of a barren, desolate, almost unreal landscape. As the instructions given by the directive reverberated in its artificial mind, the internal display indicated to which part of the landscape it was to move next. The gravitic drive propelled it toward the destination with great ease.

_Directive A-0-18: Scan for __vegetation._

The probe stopped and activated its blue flickering scanning beam, letting it graze over a representative part of the grid square. Three blue progress indicator lights flared up on the probe's front, then a larger red one, indicating that the scan had turned up no plant life. _Scan result negative_, the probe reported.

_Directive A-0-22: Scan negative. Repeat __A-0 loop._

The robot continued its tour, moving on to the next square. As it reached the destination, it noticed that the newly discovered square looked rather similar to the one it had scanned fourteen squares before. A quite uninteresting landscape indeed. It was doubtful that anything green could be found here. _A-0-18:_ _Scan for vegetation_. The probe activated its beam, which once more showed no signs of plant life. _A-0-22:_ _Repeat loop_.

Also the next square looked very much like one the probe had already visited. Odd, was there something wrong with the locator beacon, causing the probe to go in a circle? No, the location fix confirmed that this was a square not previously visited. _Scan for vegetation._ The probe decided that the locator might be defective after all and recorded, in addition to the instructed scan for plants, an exact visual image of the grid's surface. _Proceed to next grid square._

While moving from square to square, the probe created a visual image scan of each area and compared it with the one it had recorded. And indeed, fourteen squares later a match was reported. Not just a similarity. It was a _perfect_ match, down to the last pebble. _Scan for vegetation_. But why, the probe wondered. This square was obviously already visited. Starting to get confused, the it did not activate its scanning beam but instead looked around. _Scan for vegetation._ The directive was repeated and rang through the probe's mind more loudly. Something is not right here. It is important to find out what it is.

_Directive F-0-18: Return to assigned grid square._

Abandoning its chain of directives, the probe moved from square to square, taking visual image scans and comparing them to each other. After a few minutes it had found a disturbing pattern in the landscape's surface. _Return to assigned grid square_, the directive instructed with increasing insistence. The probe ignored it. Apparently the surface features repeated, perfectly down to the last rock, every fourteen square grids, in every direction.

_Directive F-0-22: Search pattern disrupted. Return to square one and restart._

The probe ignored this instruction as well, and instead picked up a rock and placed it down on the ground a few meters away from its previous spot. After making a visual recording of the rock's exact position, it activated the gravitic drive, dashing in one direction, until it had crossed fourteen grid squares. It scanned the ground, and there the stone lay, in the exact spot where the probe had put it. _Does not compute_. The probe looked around again, its view sweeping in increasing confusion, trying to understand this ever-repeating landscape. _Does not compute._

_Directive Q-0-33: Computational overload. Emergency shutdown._

The probe's systems deactivated. As the gravitic drive shut down, the probe sank slowly down to the ground, rolled over a few times and then lay still.

– – –

The computer console sounded a soft, almost apologetic warning chime as it showed the message, _"Simulation Failure: Irrecoverable computation error. A.I. core was shut down." _McCrow looked up from the screen, half in frustration, half in fascination. This was, during all the A.I. research he had done, the first time that a probe had realized it was moving through a simulated environment and shut down. Either he was completely on the wrong track with his programming, or he was onto something really big.

The door chime sounded, and McCrow uttered an irritated "Come in!". He was not overly fond of interruptions during a code debugging session.

"We found another one!" Charles Dutton from the Astrometrics department appeared quite excited as he reported that the _Deep Space Telescope_ had discovered another potentially Earth-like planet. This was good news indeed, which for now successfully outmatched McCrow's load of problems.

Dutton looked at the console and read the _simulation failure_ message that still was displayed in large unfriendly letters. "Uh-oh. Still having trouble with the artificial intelligence program?"

"Yeah. It's really odd. I'm getting the impression that the key is to make the coding intelligent enough, but not too intelligent," McCrow replied.

Dutton looked a bit sceptical as McCrow told him about how the recent simulation failure came to be. "You mean your program was _aware_ that it was in a simulated world? How can that be?"

McCrow had no answer yet. For the task at hand, it would probably be best to tone down a little on the program's auto-learning capabilities. Those probes were to scan for plants, not wonder about the big whys and hows.

"I'll get back to this later. Let's check out your new planet now, I can use a break anyway." Together they left McCrow's office and headed for the astrometrics lab.

– – –

A few months had passed since McCrow had worked for Operation Cleanup, where he had participated considerably in the design, construction and deployment of the WALL-E trash compactor robots. Now that he was back at _CASE_, the institute for _Cybernetic Applications and Space Exploration_, he was working on a new fascinating project.

For many decades, scientists had busied themselves with the endeavor of looking for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, _SETI_ having been the most notable project at that time. Now the expectations had been lowered somewhat. Their aim was now, primarily as a contractor of BNL, to find evidence for extraterrestrial plant life. _Search for Extra Terrestrial Vegetation_, so to speak. _SETV_. McCrow hoped that the project itself would be more successful than the attempt to create a fluently pronounceable acronym.

With the ever-progressing desertification of the Earth, and since the inception of the interstellar hyperdrive, it was considered a real alternative to grow food on another world and transport it back home. And despite it was still officially classified, it was widely speculated that Shelby Forthright had a secret contingency plan in case Operation Cleanup might fail: relocation of Earth's population to another world.

For both of these purposes, they had to find planets, or at least one planet, which was suitable for terraforming. The _DST_, the most powerful orbital telescope built to date, was used for step one towards this goal. For a planet to be able to sustain life, many factors had to play together. The planet had to be at the right distance around a star of the right type, so that it was not bombarded with gamma radiation, and its temperature was in the range where liquid water could exist. It had to have a magnetic field and at least a basic atmosphere. Through manifold astronomical measurements, the telescope was able to pick out just the right planets.

Step two then was to transport robotic probes to the planets in question, whose task it would be to actually scan for herbal life on location. Whatever plant life the probe found should be returned to Earth for further evaluation.

It had turned out that step two was way more complicated than step one. The probes' mechanical and electrical components had to be designed and constructed, and they needed a way more sophisticated coding than trash compactors.

Currently McCrow was primarily working on the coding part, obviously suffering some setbacks, but by and large making good progress.

His engineering colleagues had decided to use the design of the _Aerial Discovery Mobile_ glider as a basis for the probe's physical bodywork, since the gliders already encompassed several of the necessary features: a sturdy shell, an aerodynamical form, a gravitic drive and plenty of space to implement whatever instruments the probe would require. They also had made quite some progress lately, especially due to some very exciting new technology invented at the Fermilab research center.

As McCrow and Dutton entered the astrometrics lab, he smirked, not for the first time, about the geniuses who came up with the idea to call the probes _Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluators_. At long last, the lonely _AD-M_ gliders had found their _EVE_ probes.

– – –

"_Simulation successful: chosen __design goals achieved."_

The letters of the message on the computer console looked a lot friendlier now, and McCrow's mood was visibly brightening up. After several code reviews, modifications and fine-tuning of parameters, the probe's artificial mind was almost ready for a first prototype run. During simulation, the probe still had noticed the repeating landscape, but had kept to its programming instead of going haywire and shutting down. The planet they had discovered also looked very promising, at least from the considerable distance that lay between it and the Earth. All in all, a good day.

McCrow repositioned himself in his chair and stretched out his limbs. This project was indeed the most challenging A.I. programming he had ever done. The probes had to be able to orient themselves in the completely unknown and unpredictable environment of a foreign planet and assess any situation that might arise. To draw the right conclusions and take the right actions, it needed to have a considerable amount of intelligence and leaning capabilities.

For this purpose, McCrow had implemented quite advanced programming techniques like self-modifying code, genetic algorithms and, first and foremost, neural networks. In the right combination, these techniques were able to have an A.I. quite closely resemble the behavior of a biological mind. It was very difficult though to keep an overview of how they interoperated and developed, and the resulting code was very complicated, and often impossible, to debug.

Thinking about development, McCrow figured that he would need quite some time for learning and training sessions, once the programming was done and implemented into a prototype. A neural network was only the basic shape, a blank slate with a fundamental set of rules and routines, and just like a real organism, the network had to be trained, had to make experiences, to build what one could call a "personality".

McCrow scheduled a backup of his data files and left his office, to check up on how his colleagues in the Engineering department were faring.

"No no no, you can't do this! This robot is supposed to collect vegetables, not fight in World War III!"

McCrow entered the engineering lab to find his colleagues, Mark Hall and Jeremy Stone, in the middle of a heated discussion. They and a number of assistants were assembled around a large experimentation table on which lay what was obviously the prototype they were currently working on. The rest of the room was loaded with the usual equipment one would expect in such a kind of lab, like instruments, tools and switching consoles along the walls.

The probe prototype indeed did look like a miniature version of the Aerial Discovery gliders. A sleek, rounded, oval egg-like shape, about 1.5 meters in length and 60 centimeters in diameter. The outer shell was made of a white, polished plastic material. At what was probably the upper end sat a black display plate whose purpose McCrow did not yet know.

Stone replied to Hall's previous remark. "Maybe not fight in World War Three, but who knows what the poor thing may find on another planet!"

"What's it supposed to find there, giant robot-eating plants? We're looking for _herbal life_, it is highly unlikely that anything is going to attack it."

McCrow interrupted. "Hey guys, tell me, what are you fighting about, so that I can take a stand."

Hall sighed. "My dear colleague here intends to equip the probe with a fin-mounted anti-gluon gun. Can you fancy that! A plant-seeking probe with a nuclear gun!"

McCrow frowned. He had heard that they were working on the development of a new weapon system. It was supposed to be based on the matter conversion technology recently invented at Fermilab, which was now so effectively processing the trash in the streets. They said that when you made the atom splitting process in a way that it did not incorporate two elements, one that releases energy and one that absorbs it, but only the releasing one, you could create an atomic bomb like effect with any material available in the surroundings.

"I must admit that also I find the idea a little disturbing to mount a weapon of mass destruction on a robot," McCrow voiced his concerns. Then, looking at the white egg on the table, he added, "but anyway, before we get to that step, maybe you'd like to show me what we have here now?" Remembering that Hall mentioned "fin-mounted", he was wondering if the guys were building a robotic dolphin.

– – –

Some buttons were pressed, and the probe's display plate lit up, revealing that it was actually a low-resolution monochrome video screen, toned in a quite pretty light blue color. Several power-on self test messages rushed past the screen as a humming noise indicated that the gravitic drive was coming to life. The probe slowly rose from the table until it was hovering upright, looking like an oversized breakfast egg.

"For now the robot is of course completely remote-controlled, that is until your A.I. is ready for implementation," Stone explained and motioned to his assistant who was sitting at a control panel. As he spoke, the technical messages that covered the display were replaced by two large ellipses, arranged roughly in a 45 degree angle. Obviously, those ellipses were supposed to resemble the probe's eyes.

McCrow smiled. "I like this, makes it appear decidedly more friendly than if it was pointing a gluon gun at you."

Stone smirked. "Wait till you see this." He gave his assistant a signal who had the probe's eyes toggle through a range of emotional variations. Aside from the "default look", there were eyes that looked happy, sad, angry, astonished, frightened and so on.

"The angry variant will sure go nicely with the pointing gun. Provided that your A.I. can simulate all those emotional states, that is," Stone teased McCrow. "But let us get to the real fun."

Another signal, and with a bluish glow, three parts of the probe's body split apart and moved a few centimeters away, where they were held in place by an invisible force, forming a rounded head and two fin-shaped arms. In the part below the head, now looking like a white fruit bowl, a circular array of narrow bars could be seen, presumably some kind of force field projector.

McCrow gazed. "Now _this_ I like! I suppose you're using magnetic fields to hold the limbs in place?"

Stone explained that the torso and limbs were equipped with sophisticated and versatile electromagnets that allowed a very precise alignment of the magnetic field's strength and direction. To demonstrate the level of miniaturisation they had attained, he had his assistant press a few buttons, and the lower ends of the probe's fins split apart, forming three fingers and an opposable thumb.

Hall stepped closer, reached for one of the probe's arms and pulled, turned and twisted it. It appeared to be connected to the torso with an invisible spring that could be moved in any direction. As he released the arm, it smoothly moved back to its neutral position.

"Really nice!" McCrow was very pleased with what he had seen so far. "Obviously you won't be able to demonstrate too much of the probe's flying capabilities in here," he joked. "But I assume they're similar to the AD-M gliders?"

"Quite so," Hall replied. "We outfitted the probe with the same gravitic drive that the AD-Ms have, it can even operate in outer space. And we made its shell, despite its plastic look, very sturdy, as to withstand considerable heat and radiation. Again, who knows what it may find on another planet.

"And one last thing." The familiar blue glowing appeared on the probe's front side, indicating the outline of a two-winged hatch, which opened and revealed a chamber in the probe's chest. "We're still working on the tractor beam and the biostasis chamber that the probe will use to hopefully bring back the plant life it finds. Give us a few days, and that will be ready too."

McCrow nodded. A few days sounded good. By that time the A.I. would be ready too, and the first EVE could go and start exploring her very own paradise. He was looking forward to it.

– – –

It turned out that they had been a little too optimistic. They needed almost two weeks to finish their preparations, the engineers to complete the probe's bodywork, McCrow to complete the A.I. coding and integrate it with the Operational and Sensory Interface, which would give the artificial mind direct control over all physical functions.

But now they were assembled again in the engineering lab. Also Charles Dutton from astrometrics, who did not want to miss this event, was present. While McCrow was uploading the A.I. program to the probe's processing core and memory, Hall raised his voice. "As you know, it is customary, as a prototype of such complexity nears its completion, to no longer refer to it as an 'it'. All things considered, we decided to regard our newest robot here as a 'she', and therefore we also used a female voice for her speech synthesis system."

McCrow nodded in consent and looked at the probe that was lying on the lab table. EVE was, if anything, clearly a 'she'. "The A.I. core is not yet fully integrated with the speech synthesis system, so she'll utter only words or simple phrases. Any complex information she needs to convey though will be shown on the console display," he explained.

"_Core upload complete,"_ reported said display at that very moment, and everybody's tension rose visibly as Hall personally gave the instruction to activate the probe. McCrow watched nervously and with anticipation.

With a soft humming, the robot's systems came to life. The eye display lit up and the gravitic drive slowly moved her into an upright position. Her head and arm fins separated and extended, and she hovered down from the table until she rested about half a meter above the ground, bobbing slightly up and down.

Her eyes flickered momentarily, as if she was blinking. Of course the eye display was just a visual representation of what was actually a set of state-of-the-art stereoscopic cameras located behind the display plate. Still it was quite comfortable to have something to look at when relating to a robot.

Then the probe turned around to look at Hall. _"Mark Hall,"_ she said with a nicely modulated voice. It sounded a bit metallic, with a soft warbling subtone, but was clearly understandable. Hall nodded with a grin, and the probe turned further, then stopped again. _"Jeremy Stone,"_ and it was Stone's turn to nod. Also he could not stifle a little grin. When the probe looked at Dutton, she hesitated for a moment, then said _"Name?"_

"Charles Dutton," Dutton said, a little disappointed that he was not recognized. _"Charles Dutton,"_ the probe repeated, and spun to look at McCrow. _"Dave McCrow,"_ she said, and McCrow had the impression that her so far neutral eye display momentarily flickered to an expression that could best be described as a happy smile. Whether or not this was true, he smiled back warmly and nodded.

The probe's eyes stayed on McCrow as she inquired, _"Designation?"_

"Do you understand what I am saying?" asked McCrow. The probe nodded, and he continued. "Your official designation is _Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator Probe, Prototype One_. We will for short be referring to you as _EVE_." The probe looked for a moment, her eyes flickered once more. Bobbing up and moving her arms a little, she replied, _"EVE-uh"_.

McCrow chuckled. "Yes, EVE." He could not help it, her over-pronunciation of the second, usually silent, E made her appear quite adorable. He was unsure if he should ask the engineers to fix her speech synthesis, but for now, he decided to just leave it as it was._ "EVE-uh,"_ she repeated, and then inquired, _"Directive?"_

"EVE, I want you to run program _T-001_," McCrow said. EVE's eyes switched to a contemplating look for a moment, then she confirmed, _"Directive."_

And the console display, which showed her internal communications, printed the message, _"Good morning, Dave McCrow, this is EVE. I am ready for my first lesson."_

– – –

_Directive T-0-18: Scan for vegetation._

The white probe robot slowed down her gravitic drive as the instructions from the chain of directives reverberated in her artificial mind, quite like a mental checklist of things to do. She came to a halt, activated her scanning beam and let it graze over the ground. A red indicator light flared up. _Scan result negative,_ she reported.

_Directive T-0-22: Scan negative. Repeat T-0 loop._

The probe was pondering. She looked over the barren landscape, a few miles outside of Los Angeles, strewn with occasional rocks and pebbles. As she discovered a larger formation of rocks nearby, she knew that this had to be some kind of hint as to where the plant that Dave McCrow had hidden for her was located. It would fit the pattern of the increasingly difficult to spot hiding places from her previous exercises. _Requesting change of search pattern,_ she communicated to her directive core.

_Directive T-0-54: __Confirmed, proceed to desired grid square._

The probe dashed to the rock formation and circled around it, scanning for vegetation. The scan turned up nothing, and she also could not detect anything else that would classify as unusual. Then the robot remembered how Dave McCrow had, after the last successful plant hunt, told her that for the next round she would need an approach that was not _too flat_. An idea came to her.

She activated her drive and instructed it to take her _up_, away from the _flat surface_. She darted upwards a few hundred meters and looked at the rock formation again. Viewed from the third dimension, the stones formed a pattern, like a long line with two smaller lines, attached to one of its ends in a 45 degree angle. Her artificial synapses began working. She knew this symbol from a previous exercise, and she also remembered its meaning. The probe descended and followed the indicated direction.

_Directive T-0-59: Crossing multiple grid squares, please confirm._

_Confirmed_, the probe communicated, feeling a little irked. She knew what she was doing. She kept flying in the direction that the arrow pointed to, until she spotted a little green dot in all the brown and grey of the desert-like landscape. Her senses heightened and she turned up the gravitic drive to dash quickly towards her target: a seedling that was peeking half-buried out of the ground.

Three blue lights appeared on her front, followed by a larger green one.

_Directive T-0-01: Deliver to CASE training instructor._

McCrow was watching the scene on the monitors in his control center trailer that was stationed at the perimeter of the training zone. He watched as EVE scanned the plant, her stasis chamber hatch opened and she pulled the plant into it using her tractor beam. As he watched her turn around and speed towards the trailer, performing a few cheerful pirouettes in mid-flight, he noticed a distinct feeling of pride.

He was not married, nor did he have any children, but he was quite confident that this had to be the kind of pride a father would feel for his daughter who had just graduated from elementary school.


	5. A Probe's Boot Camp

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**  
Episode ****4**

**  
Author's Notes**

This is the second of five episodes in the plotline "Prototype One" dealing with the "birth" and early adventures of the first EVE prototype.

After her activation and "elementary school" training in episode 3, we see EVE's advanced training progress here, and the father-daughter-bonding between her and McCrow getting stronger.

We will witness her in several training situations and also some events outside the training routine. A plethora of events and funny moments of the movie are picked up. But a property of time is to pass, and as time passes, things change. Prepare for unforseen consequences in the end!

But we first start with a little flying lesson. We need something to base any upcoming "Define Dancing"s on. :)

This episode is quite long (over 7300 words), but don't be discouraged. It is one ep partitioned in multiple chapters, since does not support the notion of "sub-chapters".

**Caution****:** This mini-series is about emotions, about happy times and tragic events. The chains of argumentation presented therein may not always be 100% logical. The author would like to ask you to generously overlook that fact and just enjoy the ride. _Story trumps rules_. ;)

Many thanks to co-author **Unreal.2K7** for contributing some chapters, for ideas, brainstorming and proofreading!

**  
"A Probe's Boot Camp"**

(Episode 2 in "Prototype One")

The AD-M glider was dashing majestically through the air above the Los Angeles training grounds, dictating flight patterns and maneuvers, while the shapely little white probe robot was following at its side, matching its every move. Her aerodynamical form cut through the air, creating a soft whirring sound. Her eye display flickered repeatedly from an attentive look, concentrated on reacting to the glider's movements, to a joyful cheer and back again. Adam and Eve, exploring the airspace over their trashy Paradise.

Or maybe, rather father and daughter? McCrow was sitting in the glider's pilot seat, operating the controls, motioning to the probe when a maneuver was to begin. His colleague in the rear seat, Tom Jefferson, was making sure, both visually and by watching the radar screen, that the probe was doing alright. So far, nothing to complain about. "Her flying capabilities and maneuverability are really excellent. Our guys at engineering did a great job" he said to McCrow, who nodded in consent. And my A.I., my baby, is working nicely too, he added in his mind.

Every once in a while, when the glider was flying straight, the EVE probe would perform some playful spirals around the aircraft, her outstretched arm fins leaving behind a misty, whitish trail of air turbulence. What may at first sight have appeared like an aerial game of tags was in fact part of the probe's training program. Her artificial mind was to gain advanced control over the gravitic drive, and she was learning to fly in formation and to react to visual signals given to her. Of course it was not at all forbidden to have a little fun while learning – of which the EVE probe appeared to actually have a considerable amount.

"Status report," McCrow told the probe, whose internal communication system was connected to his console screen via radio link. _"All systems operational,"_ came the reply. He motioned to her the beginning of a new maneuver and took the glider into a steep climb, spinning it around its axis at the same time. The probe followed suit, rotating around the aircraft, matching its speed. Both McCrow and Jefferson were glad that the glider had, just like the robot, a gravitic drive, abolishing any sensation of acceleration. Otherwise, since neither of them was anything like a fighter pilot, this maneuver would probably have meant the premature loss of a lunch.

As the maneuver ended, McCrow leveled the glider out, almost a mile above the ground, and pressed a control which caused a hatch at the vehicle's tail end to open. He once more motioned to the robot, then a little green something was flung out of a small compartment behind the hatch. The probe's eyes took on a surprised look for a moment, then she dove off and darted after the falling plant.

McCrow watched on his monitor as she matched her descent speed with the tumbling plant, carefully shifted relative position, until the seedling was in the right spot to be tractor-beamed into her chest chamber. _"Directive fulfilled,"_ she communicated as she hovered once more beside the glider, and presented her front side, as if showing off the flashing green _plant acquired_ indicator light. You have every right to be proud, and so am I, McCrow thought with contentment.

"Okay, EVE, very nice job! This training session is complete." McCrow commended his probe, who in turn showed a happy smile and continued to move in spirals around the glider. She really likes flying, McCrow thought as he directed the AD-M back to the control station trailer. And he definitely could not blame her.

* * *

The staff of CASE really had gone to great lengths setting up the training grounds for the new probe this time, McCrow pondered on their way to their temporary home which consisted of a group of lage trailers at the perimeter of the grounds. But it was quite necessary, since EVE's was by far the most complex neural network A.I. they had ever developed.

For the first phase of the training, they had operated in a desert area outside of Los Angeles. The probe's successful interpretation of the arrow rock formation had completed that phase, and now they had moved to a much more diverse location – a trash-covered area in the city itself. The second phase was to give her better control over her physical systems and to teach her to solve more complex puzzles.

Using a neural network for an A.I. was both a blessing and, at least at times, a curse. Its learning capabilities were unmatched, but it was not only _able_ to learn, it _had_ to learn. Many a function that a robot with a "static" programming was able to perform off-the-shelf had to be taught to a neural network A.I. This included, so to speak, operating its own body, much like a baby had to learn how to walk and talk. But so far the final result had always been worth the effort.

McCrow looked through the canopy and watched the probe who was dashing along at the glider's side. It was customary that the lead A.I. programmer also carried out the initial training of the prototype. Often it was just a job, tedious at times, but this time it was very different. This probe was something special, not just due to her bodywork's pleasing appearance.

Body and mind simply went together so well. The A.I. learned to operate the physical functions so quickly, and was developing such an adorable personality. Certainly, still playful and somewhat childlike at the moment, but that would, given some time, settle down. Although there was nothing wrong with keeping a sane amount of playfulness at all times, McCrow smirked.

For now, it was also most helpful. For the initial training of a complex A.I., research and experience had shown that some methods which were also applied for animal training seemed to work best: positive reinforcement and making a game out of exercises. Of course a robotic probe was not an animal, but the workings of their minds seemingly had enough similarities, so that those two methods simply worked best for imprinting the acquired skills in the neural network.

As the base trailers came into sight, McCrow directed the glider into a smooth descent, the probe following suit. The trailers contained everything they needed for this phase. Aside from accommodations and a cafeteria, they had labs and control centers, providing the engineers and programmers with everything they needed. The probe's systems themselves were wirelessly connected to the base and also to portable display devices that the personnel could carry with them.

After having parked the glider, McCrow and Jefferson were walking towards their quarters. _"McCrow play?"_ asked the probe, hovering at their side. McCrow stopped and grinned to Jefferson. She just could not get enough.

"Tomorrow, EVE. It's been a long day, and we humans don't have such an inexhaustible power supply as you robots do. But tomorrow, you will learn some exciting new things, promised!". McCrow patted the probe's arm in goodbye.

The white robot warbled, showing happy eyes, as the two scientists disappeared in their quarters.

* * *

"_Cable?"_ the probe inquired, pointing her fin to the wire that was connecting the diagnostics port on her front to a control computer in the base's computer operations lab. McCrow explained to her that through this cable, he was able to teach her new things.

For security reasons, active access to the robot's systems was only possible by operating the buttons on her front side, or through a wired connection. Her A.I. core and her BIOS – her _Basic Information and Operation System_, which controlled all her hardware functions – could be manipulated using the wire, while the radio link provided read-only communication and status information.

"EVE, today you will learn a new function of your body. You like learning, right?" McCrow said, receiving gleeful eyes and a decided nod in reply. He took the probe's left arm fin in his hands and lifted it up. "Hold your arm up like this."

The probe did as she was told, and McCrow typed a command into his console. The lower end of the fin split apart with a soft bluish glow, forming three fingers and an opposable thumb, which separated and moved a few centimeters away from the arm. There they were held in place by the same kind of electromagnetic fields that bound the robot's arms and head to her torso. The fingers' edges were rounded, so as not to damage objects that she handled.

"_OOooh!"_ the probe warbled, looking at her hand with a surprised expression. She moved her arm up and down and watched the fingers trace the motion.

"EVE, please execute program T-012," McCrow said after having typed another command. The white robot looked at him with contemplating eyes, as she always did when she began a new training program. Then she nodded and looked back at her hand, her eyes showing comprehension and amazement. Slowly, her fingers started moving. She warbled again, then said _"Fingers!"_

So adorable, McCrow chuckled. He could not help it, the resemblance to a toddler who was discovering his body was just too striking. He took her right arm into his hands and lifted it up the same way as the left one, then typed on his console. He instructed her body's BIOS to allow the A:I. control over the fingers. "Now try it yourself!"

She looked at her right arm, and as she focused, the fingers on that arm split apart and moved in position. Her eyes flickered as she trilled joyously and looked at McCrow. "Very good!" he said. "Now repeat it a few times."

While the white probe practiced splitting and reattaching her fingers, McCrow stepped to a wall rack and fetched a little cube-shaped object. Each of its six faces was made up of nine squares covered by a colored sticker, the nine colors on one face being all identical, while each of the faces had individual colors. A mechanism allowed each face to be turned independently, thus mixing up the colors.

McCrow presented the cube to the probe who was still playing with her fingers. "Look, EVE. This here is something with which you can train both your fingers and your mind." He began turning the cube's faces, while the white robot was watching attentively. After six or seven turns, he handed her the cube and explained that it was her task to get the cube's faces back to solid colors.

She took the cube into her fingers, held it delicately, pondering. Then she began reversely retracing the rotations that McCrow had made, first insecurely, but step by step gaining more accuracy over her finger's motions. After a while she had returned the cube to its original state and presented it to McCrow. "Very nice!" he said cheerfully and petted the robot on her head.

"_O__Oooh"_, she trilled again, raising her arms a little, and added a noise that distinctly sounded like a little giggle. She likes being petted, McCrow thought, another analogy to training an animal. He probably had introduced this – rather unintentionally – by using touches as a positive reinforcement, every other time the robot had done something right. Well, why not, it made her even more lifelike.

McCrow took the cube from the robot, and they repeated the process of mixing up the colors and having her return it to solid a few times. She made impressive progress, requiring less time each turn. McCrow was very content.

"As you see, fingers are very helpful. You can also use them to hold and pull things. Let me show you." And McCrow lifted up her arm, spread her fingers a little and interspersed them with his own. The probe regarded their joined hands with curious eyes.

Then he tugged gently, and since the robot was floating neutrally above the ground, her whole body was pulled towards the scientist. The robot made a little giggling sound again and tugged back, playfulness showing in her eyes. The electromagnetic and gravitational forces she could apply were certainly much stronger than McCrow's muscles, so he stumbled forwards and would probably have toppled down, had she not reacted quickly and caught him. "Okay okay," he said, chuckling, "I suppose you win this game of tug."

He unlocked his hands from the probe's and picked up the colored cube again. Then, before rotating the faces, he turned his back towards her so that she could not see his moves. The robot warbled and tried to look over McCrow's shoulders, but he blocked the cube from her view.

He presented it to her only after moderately mixing the colors. Her next task obviously was to find out on her own how to reverse the changes, without being able to retrace rotations. Showing eagerness she took the cube and started pondering. Her artificial synapses working furiously, she generated rules and algorithms for moves that would return the cube from this unknown starting point to solid-colored faces. It only took her less than half a minute to complete the task, including performance of the necessary rotations.

McCrow nodded happily, and while rotating the cube again for another round, he said "Very nice. A little training, and you will be able to solve any cube puzzle in just a few seconds."

* * *

"Looks very good, except for this little discrepancy on her right hand here."

Later the same day, McCrow and Mark Hall were checking a computer display in the engineering lab, evaluating the results from the finger skills test. The probe was hovering behind them, observing curiously what they were doing.

"Yes, we just need to fine-tune the parameters of the fingers' electromagnetic field projector a little. Will take only a few minutes. We need to dismount her arm though", Hall replied.

The white robot warbled nervously at those words, and as McCrow turned around to smile reassuringly, he could see her scared expression. "Don't worry, EVE, it's nothing bad. It won't hurt or anything, it might just feel a tiny bit strange. Like the one time the EM generator in your arm failed and you could not extend it, remember?"

The probe remembered that she had not really liked it, but indeed it had not been all that bad. "Come on, you're a brave girl, aren't you?" smirked McCrow.

"_Hmph."_ the probe replied. She was not fully sure about being brave, but she was going to trust McCrow and nodded.

Hall asked one of his assistants to prepare the necessary tools and then stepped up to the robot, trying to calm her. "No need to be afraid. Dave is right, you won't feel a thing. I'll need to execute a BIOS command to unlock the arm. It's easiest when I type the code directly into your controls. Please retract your fingers, and tell me when you're ready."

A little uneasiness remaining, she replied, _"Ready."_ Hall lifted up her arm fin, held it firmly and pressed a sequence of buttons on the probe's front. She regarded the procedure apprehensively, then trilled a little as the electromagnetic field projectors on her right side shut off and released the fin. It came off easily and Hall carried it over to a rack of instruments in the back of the room where his colleague was already waiting.

There the probe floated, one arm stretched out, the other one missing, showing miserable eyes. If she could blush, she would probably have been nine shades of beet red. McCrow grinned and could not stifle a little chuckle.

"_Hmp__h!"_ the robot repeated, distinctly more annoyed this time.

McCrow laughed. "Aww, come on, little spoilsport. You'll have it back in no time." And he added, a little louder, "luckily our trigger-happy engineering friends have not yet installed that gluon gun they were dreaming about. Would be too bad if someone was to accidentally fire it in here, right, Mark?"

He received a reply from the other end of the room that sounded remarkably like a "Hell yeah!". Performing the adjustments on the arm, Hall added, "Oh Dave, do me a favor and check out the EM projectors in her torso while we are at it. No biggie, just run the basic diagnostics."

McCrow actually liked playing the engineer from time to time, so he agreed and picked up a maintenance cable. Stepping up to the still slightly disgruntled probe, he connected the cable to the diagnostics port in her empty arm cavity, about where the armpits would be on a human body. He pondered that it was probably a good thing that she did _not_ have a gluon gun at this point.

He walked to the maintenance console and started the diagnostic cycle. The right side of her torso momentarily appeared to be illuminated from within, and the probe's eye display switched to an expression McCrow had never seen before. He could not really interpret it, but as she began to giggle almost hysterically, her torso and still attached arm bobbing up and down, he himself could not help it but started laughing again. Obviously the neural network had developed the ability to react to manipulations that it regarded as _being tickled_.

It lasted only for a few seconds, and as the diagnostic was complete, the probe shook her head and looked at McCrow with an utmost confusion. The roboticist was sure, if he had been so bold as to teach his girl a little more colorful language, her next remark would have contained at least one four-letter-word.

As Hall returned with the fully calibrated arm fin, noticing the baffled probe, he gave McCrow a questioning look. The roboticist sighed, still smiling, reckoning that it would take a while to explain to both the probe and his colleague what had happened.

Hall placed the fin back against the robot's right side, typed another command into her front buttons, and the EM projectors fired up again. With the familiar blue glow, the fin reattached, and the probe – re-armed yet still unarmed – was quite visibly relieved and decidedly verified the mobility and stability of her regained limb.

McCrow and Hall looked at the probe, who was seemingly testing if the EM projectors would take the strain of her imitating a ventilator. Then they looked at each other, figuring it might be better not to tempt fate, and sneaked out of the lab in a successful strategic withdrawal.

* * *

Chances are that most parents on this planet at least once have caught their youngsters reading a book under their blanket when they were actually supposed to be sleeping, or doing something forbidden just because it was forbidden. Curiosity is a strong incentive, and the white probe robot was no exception there.

So it was almost to be expected that one night, when she actually was supposed to be in regenerative mode, she sneaked out of the base, intent on exploring this trash city on her own for a change, after all those supervised training missions she had done.

As she was hovering through the streets, a huge billboard caught her attention which, during the city's happier times, had tried to lure customers into the gigantic BnL shopping mall beneath it. _We got all you need, and so much more._

"_OOooh!"_ the little probe warbled, trying to figure out what _she_ might need and what other things this abandoned but still interesting building might hold. She floated towards it and passed the open double sliding doors.

Inside, she found herself in a cash register hall whose dimensions matched that of the billboard. Thirty cash desks were arranged in two columns, and a banner in BnL's blue and red colors was spanning across the hall, reading _Evacuation Sale_. Opposite of the entrance a flight of steps led upwards to a landing above which a pitched roof with numerous windows could be seen. During daytime, the upper hall had to be beautifully illuminated by the sunlight, the probe pondered while she hovered up the stairs. Now it was just the moon that immersed the hall in a spooky light.

Up on the landing, she found an army of old rusty shopping carts, wedged together and propped up in a way that had probably not been on the original designer's mind. The floor had quite an incline down towards the stairs there, and the carts looked like they only needed the right kind of stimulation to start a stampede. A mischievous flickering in her eyes, the probe grabbed one of the carts and shook it, then another one, and another, until the whole horde appeared sufficiently unstable. A little knock would be sufficient now to have whoever caused it run for his life.

Content with her achievement, the probe nodded and floated on. She crossed another hall and then hovered into a corridor. Here she found the labeled entrances to several shopping departments, of which the _Robotic Goods_ caught her special attention. She floated towards the passage with a curious warble.

Behind the door lay a large, dark, windowless room. Indications of the usual goods shelves one would expect in a supermarket could be seen. The probe floated in, her blue glowing eyes being the only noteworthy light. She was moving forward warily as not to bump into any objects when she heard a soft scuttling noise.

A little startled, the probe pondered what might be here that could cause that noise. She was of the impression that this whole place had been long abandoned. There was the noise again, louder this time. It sounded like scuttling or rustling, as if something was scurrying over the ground. She tried to determine the direction from where the noise came.

There it was again, and now it sounded like it was coming from at least two separate sources. The white probe floated towards a corner of the room, the assumed origin of the sounds, her feeling of apprehension increasing. The noises got louder, more numerous, and now she could see little glowing dots in the distance, scuttling around on the ground.

With scared eyes, the probe looked around and noticed an array of fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. She would really like to know what those strange dots were. If only there was a way to light up those tubes, but this place had quite surely been out of electricity for a long time.

Then the little dots started advancing towards her, apparently moving in pairs. The probe got really anxious now and pondered retreat. But her curiosity rather wanted her to stay and solve this mystery! The glowing dots and scuttling sounds were getting more and more numerous, she counted over two dozen pairs of them now.

She looked at the tubes on the ceiling again, warbling anxiously, wishing once more that there was a way to light them up. Mere seconds before the dots reached her, her anguish won and she fired up her gravitic drive, instinctively darting upwards, away from the glowing dots on the ground.

And all of a sudden, the fluorescent tubes flickered and came to life. One after the other the lit up, bathing the room in illumination. Baffled, the probe blinked at the sudden bright light. Then she looked down and spotted a horde of small creatures scurrying on the ground. It were robotic rodents, little robotic rats! The glowing dots had been little light sources in their eyes.

As she trilled, both in relief and puzzlement, she heard another noise, this time from outside the department hall. But before her eyes could flicker to anxiety again, McCrow entered the room. "Yikes!" he said at the view of the rat-infested ground. "EVE, good gracious, what are you doing here?"

* * *

He scooped a few of the robots aside with his foot so he could enter the room. He looked up at the probe who was still floating under the ceiling, warbling a quiet, trembling _"Scared!"_.

He grinned and said, "Aww, poor little thing. Don't worry, EVE, they're completely harmless. They're RM-E toys, Rodent Ministration Education robots. Kids use them to play with and to learn how to care for animals. You can come down now." He was pondering the bigger mystery, which of course was how the rats and lights had been powered, since the mall had not been connected to any power plant ever since the city was evacuated.

The probe floated down, towards McCrow, warbling _"Found me?"_ McCrow replied that the base computers had woken him up to alert him at unusual energy readings coming from her, and that he had found her using her locator beacon.

She stretched out her fins. The roboticist smiled and took them, and immediately jumped back again, exclaiming a surprised "ouch!", as a long spark of static electricity jumped from her white frame to his hand.

Taken aback by McCrow's reaction, the probe retreated, looking aghast that she might have hurt him. She warbled incomprehensibly while McCrow shook out his hand and looked at her. "Well, I don't know how you managed this, but it would explain how all the electrical things in here got power."

McCrow explained to the probe robot that her bodywork possessed an apparatus to project focused alternating magnetic fields, which could by means of induction cause an electric current in any metallic conductor. The device was called "electromagnetic induction projector", or EMI for short. Using this technology, she was able to power electrical devices or do other things that required electric energy. As a side effect, which could either be caused deliberately or by uncontrolled usage, her outer shell was charged with static electricity. And that was what had just made McCrow say 'ouch'.

"But what is really remarkable is that normally you'd have to be trained to create such a focused field as to power those light tubes. You weren't trained, you did it instinctively when you were scared. And it probably was your curiosity when you entered this room that caused your EMI projector to power up the rats," he said to the probe.

He smiled and stretched out his hands. "Okay, EVE, now you must try to control it. Concentrate on powering down the RM-E robots, and on discharging your shell. But keep the light tubes on. Just focus on commanding the projector to do what you want it to."

The probe regarded the little rodent robots with sharp eyes, and after a while, they shut off, one after the other, until all the scuttling had subsided. The probe looked up and at McCrow with elation, and he nodded back at her with a smile. "Very good! I don't think you'll need many training sessions with the EMI projector, but we shall start with it soon."

After looking concentrated again for an instant, the probe floated towards McCrow, let him take her fins into his hands and leaned her head lightly against his cheek. As they made contact, the gentlest of sparks transferred over to him, and this time it did not cause McCrow to jump back, but rather to caress her white plastic frame with an appreciative grin.

Although McCrow did not exactly _love_ BnL, they still had managed, even if it had probably been intended differently, to _sell him a little happiness_.

* * *

"Hello Dave!" McCrow was greeted by his long-time friend and colleague James Michelson as he entered the computer lab a few days later.

"Hi Mike," McCrow replied, looking a little absent-minded. Michelson's usual nickname around the base was "Mike", since "Jim" was already taken by another colleague, and "James" sounded way too formal.

"You okay?" Michelson asked, looking McCrow over. Then he noticed something about his shoes. McCrow was wearing the usual safety boot on his left foot and a formal elegant shoe on his right. Aside from the fact that wearing two different kinds of shoes was in and of itself odd, it also appeared out of place since they had another training session with the EVE probe out in the trashy streets scheduled for that day. Therefore McCrow was equipped with only fifty percent the appropriate footwear.

"Now what is that, Dave? Been watching too much 'Hello Dolly' lately?" Michelson asked with a smirk.

McCrow put on a questioning look, and it took him quite a while to understand what Michelson was talking about. Then he chuckled. Both of them had a neck for those old twentieth century musical films.

_Put on your Sunday clothes..._

"Yeah right, it would seem that way, wouldn't it? But actually I'm not 'feeling down and out', aside from the fact that for the love of Shelby Forthright I can't seem to find my right boot. So I figured it might be best to put on half my formal foot attire instead of preparing the plant hunt half barefoot. But don't you dare and take out your camera on this one!"

Michelson chuckled. In addition to his employment at CASE, he was a hobby journalist, and permanently prepared to aim and shoot for the Pulitzer prize. "Whatever suits you. Speaking of plant hunt, how's our little white sweetie doing?"

"She's still sleeping like a baby," McCrow replied, which was their term for expressing that the probe was in regenerative mode, awaiting her next assignment. "Have you already picked a spot for today's plant hideout?"

"Yep, I thought after the good progress she's making with her fingers and the EMI projector, we might put it in there, to have her use all of those skills." He pointed at a computer monitor which showed an old electrically operated filing cabinet that was lying around in the streets. The cabinet had a simple combination lock. Reaching the plant would therefore require the probe to find the hint for the combination that they were going to put somewhere nearby, apply power to the cabinet and operate its knobs and levers.

"Okay, good call," McCrow agreed. "Let's do it!"

Half an hour later the white probe was dashing through the streets, trying to figure out the riddle that the two roboticists had prepared for her. McCrow and Michelson were watching on a computer screen as she approached the filing cabinet.

"Am I just seeing things, or is she trying to hide a smirk there? What might our little lady be up to?" Michelson wondered.

"Now that you mention it," McCrow replied. He too thought he had seen a cute mischievous expression in the probe's eyes just before. "Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough, she has just found the plant. She's really fast."

Indeed she was. After applying power to the cabinet it was an easy task to set the right combination and open the box. With her backside turned towards the surveillance camera, she picked up the plant and let it disappear in her chest chamber. As she turned around to set off back to the base, the two scientists stood up and stepped outside.

They had just left the trailer when the robot already came floating around the street corner. She darted towards them with the usual whizzing sound and stopped right in front of them. There she raised her fin and put it against her head, as if performing a military salute, and warbled _"Directive fulfilled."_

Then she opened her chest chamber, and her tractor beam produced a safety boot which looked remarkably like the right counterpart to half of McCrow's footwear. Inside the boot, a little seedling plant had been neatly arranged, complete with a clump of earth for it to sit in. The expression in the probe's eyes was the most charming mixture of amusement and mischief the two roboticists had seen so far.

McCrow's jaw dropped. "No you didn't!" he said to the probe, who raised her arms and giggled. Then she pointed her left fin to her right fin and trilled, _"Retaliation."_ Michelson laughed out loudly. So finally she had gotten her revenge for McCrow's making fun of her when she had her fin removed.

As McCrow received the plant-boot and held it in his hands, mouth still open, the white robot floated towards him and gave him a little hug, propping her head against him.

Then there was a bright flash. And another one.

McCrow turned around, and there Michelson stood, holding his camera in his hands, busy filling its storage chip with memories. Since McCrow's jaw could not possibly drop any further, he just repeated, this time towards his colleague, "No you didn't!"

The probe giggled again, leaned in and transferred a little spark to McCrow. He accepted it bravely, realizing that he quite probably had deserved all of this. Michelson was right, he pondered, it was quite 'Hello Dolly' indeed, since he now even _had his picture took_.

Looking at the probe and then at the plant-boot in his hands, he decided that it would be a pity to destroy this pretty work. He decided to rather keep it as a memory, something to remind him of these happy times. Who could tell how long they might last. Instead, he took off his left safety boot which was now without a partner, looked at it and threw it away onto one of the nearby heaps of junk. Maybe someone else was going to find it and make good use of it some time later. Maybe some time much later.

* * *

_Process complete. 8454 connections between 649 neurons __with 6423 unique weight parameters analyzed._

McCrow was looking over the shoulder of his colleague Michelson and nodded contently at the message on his computer console. "Seems we're making progress here. This is the largest network our analyzer had to crack so far, and it looks like it's working nicely."

Michelson agreed. The two of them were working, in cooperation with several other software and hardware developers at CASE, on a long-term project to create a new kind of analysis and reverse-engineering software for neural networks. Should they succeed, there would, for the first time, be a way to modify specific behaviors or apply well-directed fixes even to very complex networks. So far, doing so was impossible due to the nature and functionality of such networks.

A neural network was not a neat list of software code, like one would expect from other programming languages. It rather was a multitude of connections and weight parameters between single functional units which emulated the workings of one nerve cell each. Therefore it required a completely new kind of approach to analyse them and comprehend _how and why_ they did what they did.

"If we can keep this up, we should be able to reach the next project milestone in six months, as scheduled," Michelson said. McCrow nodded and turned around to look at Mark Hall who had joined them in the engineering lab to conduct an experiment.

A few days had passed since the event with the plant-boot, which had found a place of honor on a shelf in McCrow's personal quarters. He even had put a sticker on the side of his computer screen which reminded him to water it regularly.

"Okay Mark, we're ready here. What about your magnets?" McCrow asked Hall. They were trying to improve the capacity and precision of the EMI projector technology. A lab version of the device that was built into the EVE probe sat on a table, and opposite of its operational end they had set up an array of little handheld electromagnets. They were going to focus on those, trying to activate and attract one magnet at a time.

"Yep, all set up and ready," Hall replied.

Just as McCrow was about to reply, a whirring noise from outside got in his way. He looked through the window and observed two AD-M gliders that were landing just in front of the base. One glider bore the insignia of the CASE institute, the other those of the Department for Agricultural Survey. McCrow frowned.

"Mike, can you take over? I'm gonna go and check what's going on out there."

On his way through the corridors towards the base entrance, the probe robot was floating up to him and inquired, _"Gliders?"_

"Yes, EVE, I was about to check who's visiting. Why don't you go and keep Mike some company, he's in the engineering lab." The probe nodded and hovered off.

McCrow stepped outside and was greeted by the occupants of the gliders who had meanwhile dismounted their vehicles. One of them was Alex Mendez, McCrow's senior at CASE, accompanied by a colleague from the robotics department, and two people he did not know.

"Mr. Mendez, hello, nice to see you! May I ask what brings you here?" McCrow was of course astonished that they might use AD-M gliders just for a goodwill visit.

"Hello, Mr. McCrow. May I introduce you to Mr. Derring and Mr. West from Agricultural Survey. And you sure know Mr. Landry from your department. Our visit here, as you can probably deduce from the fast transportation we used, is one of the utmost urgency. May I suggest therefore that we start right away. Can you please have a private conference room prepared for us? And be aware that everything that will be talked about is to be considered top secret."

* * *

Since the CASE field base had no actual conference room, McCrow had decided to hire a few of his colleagues and spontaneously convert the cafeteria into one. Meanwhile the probe robot had joined Michelson and Hall in the engineering lab and was watching the two scientists with interest.

"Look here, EVE. This experiment so to speak concerns you as well. We're working on the EMI projectors. See those magnets over there?" Michelson said to the probe.

"_OOooh"_, she warbled, curiosity showing in here eyes, as she regarded the flock of little electromagnets. She raised her fins a bit, and suddenly there was a humming noise coming from the row of magnets.

"Careful, EVE!" Hall exclaimed, but it was already too late. The electromagnets activated, powered by the probe's still not fully controlled EMI projector. They flung towards the closest metallic object they could find, which happened to be the probe herself. A few seconds and multiple clunking noises later, about a dozen little magnets covered her white frame. She raised her arms and looked about her body with a mixture of confusion and embarrassment.

Hall and Michelson chuckled. "Alright then. Actually we had planned to test that EMI projector over there on the table, but while we are at it, we might as well do a real-life test and see if you can get rid of those magnets again." Michelson said to the probe.

She lowered her arms, looked at the roboticist and her eyes took on a shape that quite matched the _"Hmph!"_ that she uttered. She picked up one of the magnets thatr stuck against her torso, but since her arm and hand also had a metallic interior, the magnet now stuck to her fingers. She shook out her arm, sending the magnet flying away.

"Good, only thirteen to go." Michelson commented, receiving another disgruntled noise from the probe in reply.

* * *

McCrow and his guests were sitting in the makeshift conference room, where the roboticist was listening to Mendez' explanation. His expression got paler by the minute.

It turned out that the Agricultural Survey institute, which supervised cultivation and farming around the globe, had received disturbing reports by its local branches. It appeared that a degenerative process had begun among the already severely decimated nutriment vegetation on the Earth.

The planet was suffering from progressive desertification due to climate changes, accelerated by the 'consumistic' behavior of its inhabitants. In addition to that, the plants that still existed were now showing inexplicable signs of decay which progressed way faster than any climatic effect could explain.

This alarming development had been monitored for two weeks now, in the hope that it might just be temporary, but it had turned out to even have increased during that time. Therefore a harsh decision had to be made.

"If the vegetation decay progresses at the current rate, it is calculated that the Earth's food reserves will run out within a one-year period." Derring explained. "But that's just a rough estimate of course. Since it's not yet known _what_ is causing the decay, it could get better – or much worse – any day."

Mendez took over. "Therefore we deem it necessary to speed up the SETV project considerably, and also to adjust its objective. We no longer have time to terraform planets. We need planets that are basically suitable for immediate cultivation.

"As you know, our deep space telescope can make out planets that appear suitable from the distance. So far, we have found fifteen such worlds, and it is expected that more will be discovered. We badly need the EVE probe you are developing here. We need it to go on location, to actually confirm their suitability and to assess the chances of a successful cultivation."

McCrow nodded slowly. He was thunderstruck by the news. Still he knew that it would not help them if they panicked. "I understand. We have made huge progress with EVE, she is almost ready for her mission right now, and I'm quite positive we can speed up the process even more. How do you plan to cultivate the worlds she deems suitable?"

"As we speak, several other groups have begun their work. We're retrofitting a fleet of cruise ships into cargo and delivery ships, both to take farming robots to the planets in question, and to transport the harvested food back here. We're retrofitting as much as we can instead of building new ships or robots. The TYP-E units for example have turned out to be quite adept at planting seeds.

"Unfortunately, progress in hyperspace technology has not yet reached the point where we could go to any place in the galaxy as fast as we wanted. The cruise ships are slow, so we definitely need to know in advance which worlds offer the highest chance of successful cultivation. Therefore we're building a small and light transport vessel for the probe, equipped with a gravitic and high-speed hyperdrive."

McCrow nodded again. "And since we don't know yet how the vegetation situation here will develop, we need to pull through with this project as quickly as possible."

"Quite correct, Mr. McCrow. Growing the food after suitable planets are found will take time, and we want the first shipments on their way back to Earth before our supplies here run out. We hope you can have the probe ready when the transport vessel is complete. I'm glad that you agree with us."

McCrow did agree. He had to agree. He had not planned for his exploration mission to possibly turn into one on which the survival of humankind might depend, but sometimes there was no choice.

* * *

"_Mrrrr!"_ The white probe was still hovering in the engineering lab, struggling with the last of the electromagnets that were clinging to her shell. Those she had managed to deactivate were lying on the floor beneath her. Hall and Michelson were watching her with amusement.

Just as McCrow entered, she succeeded in deactivating the remaining magnets except for one, which she was holding in her hand. As her view fell on the roboticist, her eyes flickered to happy crescents and she warbled, presenting the last magnet to him.

McCrow looked back at her, but there was no smile crossing his face. He looked serious and contemplating. He walked up to the probe and took the magnet from her. She noticed his sullen expression, and as he took her fin in his hands and gently caressed over it, her eyes became concerned as well.

Also his colleagues noticed that something was wrong. "We have a serious problem. Not only we here, but _we all_." And he began to explain to his colleagues and to the little white robot what he had come to know during the conference.

He looked sadly at the probe. "I'm afraid EVE will have to leave her childhood behind much sooner than we had anticipated."

Sometimes there was no choice.

**  
Author's Notes**

Thus ends EVE's "boot camp". The chapter with the plant-boot of course was the titular chapter for this episode. I hope you liked the very obvious movie references.

**Note:** Even though I know that it's hard to believe: when I wrote the chapter with the robotic rats in the BnL store, I did **not** know in advance that the rats in the movie **are** actually named REM-E. It's true, I myself came up with the abbreviation RM-E and its meaning. I hope you do believe that. ;)

The problem that arose in the last chapter forces McCrow to speed up EVE's training process, and the next episode will tell how that develops, depicting both dramatic and fantastic events. The bond that has formed between them, becoming even stronger with the things to come, will help them get through the troubled times ahead.

**Co-Author's Notes**

This is my first "real" attempt to help an author with his endeavors. If you find this episode (and the following two) nice to read, then it means that I didn't do too much damage! :)

Joke aside, many thanks to the main author and please, drop a comment or give some feedback if you liked this story, or tell us what we can do better if you didn't!

A special note about the boot: the next time you watch the film you'll probably do so with different eyes when the boot scene comes up. And by the way. It is true! Locutus didn't know about the RM-E reference to Ratatouille when he came up with the idea. Well, either it's random or he's a genius, you have the choice! ;)

Stay tuned. More is to come...


	6. Automato Sapiens

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**  
Episode ****5**

**  
Author's Notes**

This is the third of five episodes in the plotline "Prototype One" dealing with the "birth" and early adventures of the first EVE prototype.

After her advanced training and the arising serious problem that we have seen in episode 4, we now move on to witness how McCrow and EVE try to do their part to counteract the impending catastrophe.

This episode presents dramatic and fantastic events which trigger a glaring change for EVE. Then we close the episode by having EVE meet someone who might become a friend later.

**Caution****:** This mini-series is about emotions, about happy times and tragic events. The chains of argumentation presented therein may not always be 100% logical. The author would like to ask you to generously overlook that fact and just enjoy the ride. _Story trumps rules_. ;)

Many thanks to co-author **Unreal.2K7** for contributing some chapters, for ideas, brainstorming and proofreading!

**  
"Automato Sapiens"**

(Episode 3 in "Prototype One")

McCrow was looking through the windows of his private quarters as an AD-M glider took off and left the base in a graceful curve. The representatives from the Agricultural Survey were heading back to their offices, while his boss Mendez and his colleague Landry still stayed at the base.

He turned around and looked at the white probe robot who was hovering in the middle of his quarters, curiously regarding the plant-boot and other trinkets on a shelf.

"EVE, have you understood the problem that we all are facing, that I explained to you before? Do you remember what your prime instructions are?"

The probe turned around, looked at McCrow and pointed a fin to the place on her front where the "plant acquired" icon used to light up. _"Directive,"_ she warbled.

"Yes, EVE. As much as I hate to say this, but the carefree playtime during your training is over. We all are required to do our duty now and to work together, if we are to overcome this trouble. Do you understand the seriousness of the situation?"

The robot nodded slowly, her eyes changing from their previous neutral expression to a clear indication of graveness.

"Very good. To be able to fulfill your mission, you will need to know a few more things about your bodywork. First, there's your chest chamber. And second, your bioscanner is going to be enhanced with a new function."

McCrow explained to the probe that the chamber in her chest was more than just a storage room. It contained a biostasis functionality which could put any organic material into suspended animation. This was necessary to keep the assumed plant alive during the possibly lengthy trip back to earth. Also, her scanner was to be upgraded so that it could not only examine already existing vegetation, but could also evaluate soil composition, for an assessment if the ground would support plant growth.

"Those are new procedures for you, so we scheduled a few training sessions to get you used to them. I'm assuming, seeing how fast you learn new things, that it won't take long. But before that, my boss, Mr. Mendez, would like to personally inspect the progress we're making. So, what do you say, should we show him what you can do?"

The probe nodded again, this time showing a confident eagerness.

"Alright. One thing. Even though we've now reached the serious side of life, I want you to never stop being your charming self. Promise?"

"_Promise,"_ the probe replied, her eyes flickering to happy crescents for a second.

As McCrow was about to turn towards the door, something came to his mind. "Oh, one other thing." He looked intently at the probe. "No sparks for my boss, okay?"

The probe giggled, raised her right fin into an oath posture and repeated, _"Promise."_

McCrow smiled and nodded. "Okay then, let's do it."

* * *

Mendez was watching the images on McCrow's computer screen with interest. He had asked to first be shown observation camera recordings of several training sessions. McCrow noticed the content expression on his superior's face, relieved that he was obviously pleased with what he was seeing. Mendez nodded a few times when the probe had, after solving increasingly difficult tasks, found and acquired another plant.

"You haven't promised too much, your progress is really remarkable," Mendez said. "I can see the well-established training patterns for this kind of A.I. still work nicely," he added as a scene of McCrow patting the white robot and receiving a giggle and happy eyes in response flickered past the screen.

McCrow nodded with a little smile towards the probe who was hovering behind them. "Indeed they do. We found that they work the better the more complex the A.I. to be trained."

"You mentioned before that you also performed several flying sessions? Can we maybe see some recordings of those too? I take it the gravitic drive adopted from the AD-M models is working well."

"Uuhm," McCrow hesitated. "I'm sorry, our AD-Ms are not yet equipped with the necessary type of observation cameras. But we could play back the recordings made by the probe herself if you wish. We'd need to access her visual output port directly though, we haven't transferred the recordings to our computer systems yet."

"Okay, sure, please do," Mendez replied. McCrow nodded and walked to an instrument rack from where he fetched a device that looked like a little white stick. The probe regarded him curiously as he returned and commented with a little warble as he connected the device to a data port on her head. The white stick turned out to be a portable projection instrument which read the recorded visual data directly from the probe's memory and displayed it on a holoprojection.

With another surprised trill the probe looked at the image appearing in front of her. It showed the first flying lesson she had done with McCrow, from first person perspective. She had not been aware that everything she saw was also recorded in her memory.

Also McCrow and especially Mendez watched the video with interest. Mendez uttered an appreciative "Whoa!" as the probe followed the glider's vehement maneuvers and a bit later went into a steep dive to catch up with the falling plant. "Impressive!" he commented after the plant was safely stored in the probe's chest chamber. "And that was during her first lesson?"

"Not the very first, we had gone through some basic flying instructions before that. But it was the first real lesson where she had to catch a plant."

"Very nice indeed. I guess her aerial maneuverability won't be any issue. My interest is aroused now though, can we maybe see some more recordings from her view?" Mendez asked.

"Certainly," McCrow answered and pressed a few controls on the projection device. The image shifted and showed several more of the probe's activities, both on and off training.

Among those were also a few images that the probe would rather not have wished for McCrow's boss to witness. It started with her experience with the removed arm and the subsequent ticklish diagnostics, followed by her preparation of the trolley trap, her escapades with the robotic rats, and it ended with her mischievously implementing the plant in McCrow's boot.

As the playback was finished, the probe looked from McCrow to Mendez and back, her posture and eyes more eloquently showing her embarrassment for being caught red-handed than a thousand words would have been able to.

Mendez grinned momentarily to McCrow, then turned to the probe with a stern expression on his face. "Well, miss EVE, what was that all about? Having some fun during training?"

The probe did not know what to reply and just warbled incomprehensibly. She looked at McCrow, as if asking for support, but the roboticist had put on a similarly strict look as his boss. Finally, with a feeling of guilt, she hung her head and trilled a quiet _"Sorry."_

"You are aware that the time for childish play is over, right?" Mendez asked.

The probe nodded, without looking up, and repeated, _"Sorry."_

Then McCrow approached the white robot and lifted her head. She looked up at him and found the grim look replaced by a warm smile. "Don't worry, little dear. Antics are no shame at all while you're young. Am I right, Mr. Mendez?"

Also McCrow's boss had dropped his act and grinned. "No shame at all." The probe's eyes flickered to relief and a little sadness. "Just be aware that it is indeed important to focus on your duty from now on," Mendez added.

The white robot nodded, and said, with firm eyes, _"Promise. Duty."_

"Very good, that's all I need to hear, and see. Mr. McCrow, you have a go for phase three."

* * *

Less than an hour after Mendez' departure, McCrow, Hall and a few of their assistants were assembled in the engineering lab, preparing the EVE probe for said 'phase three'. McCrow had asked his colleague Michelson to meanwhile prepare the plant, so they would not waste any time and could commence the first training session as soon as the probe was ready.

The white robot was connected to the lab's machinery with multiple cables. A small access flap on her shell's front side had been opened, revealing her mechanical and electronic innards. She showed a little discomfort as Hall was working on her bioscanner, poking around with different instruments, but she took it calmly.

"I was wondering if she could feel pain," one of the assistant engineers said while watching the scene. "After all, I've seen her show ticklishness, then she can surely feel pain too?"

McCrow answered. "Well, her shell does have tactile sensors, whose signals are interpreted by her neural network. In the course of her training she has probably seen humans being tickled multiple times, so she has developed a way to imitate that. Now, if those sensory signals were to get too intense, close to overload, yeah I guess you could call that 'feeling pain'."

The probe listened up and showed a little frown. She remembered the reactions of some humans she had seen endure pain, like after dropping something on a finger. It did not seem to be a pleasant sensation.

Noticing the assistant's pitying look, McCrow added with a grin, "But no worries, Mark's activities there won't cause any trouble, or she'd already have complained."

The robot uttered a quick giggle and nodded. Yes, she would for sure have complained.

"Hey now, what are you guys talking about. As if I could ever do anything to hurt our little miss here," Hall laughed. "And by the way, I'm almost done. The scanner upgrade is complete, now just to arm the biostasis functionality, and we're all set."

He looked at the white probe and added, "I hope you won't feel too embarrassed that I need to twiddle a little with the interior of your chest compartment."

Time for another 'hmph', McCrow pondered and was confirmed a mere second later by the probe's warbling statement. He could not stifle a little chuckle. "Okay guys, it seems you got everything under control here, so I'll leave you to it and check up with Michelson. EVE, meet me outside the base when Dr. Frankenstein here is finished with you. Your next training stage awaits."

On his way out of the engineering lab, after collecting a disapproving glance from Hall, he passed by the white probe, met her eyes with a reassuring smile and gave her a little caress along her fin.

As he crossed the corridor that led to computer operations, he found Michelson entering the base trailer. "Hey Mike, all set with the plant?"

"Yep. I chose a very special spot this time," Michelson smirked as they stepped into the computer lab. He pointed at a console screen which showed the exterior of a large yellow-and-brown trailer.

"Good call," McCrow agreed. This should make for a nice diversion in training location, he figured.

* * *

_Directive T-2-14: Proceed to next grid square._

The white probe hovered smoothly through the streets of the Los Angeles training grounds, past the ubiquitous heaps of garbage, car wrecks and old tattered newspapers. Looking left and right, she searched for spots that would make worthwhile scanning targets.

_Directive T-2__-18: Scan for vegetation._

Obediently the probe activated her scanner beam and let it graze over the surface. She was aware that the time of carefree playing was over, and that she soon would be expected to perform her duty out in the field. And going to perform it she was! Her eye display switched to an expression of determination. It was her mission to find plants, to help Dave McCrow and his fellow humans find the right planet, to help them make nourishment, and that was what she was going to do! Even if she had to scan every stone on every planet.

As the robot turned around the next street, her view fell on a large bulky vehicle. It looked like a huge transport trailer on wheels, painted in yellow and brown tones. She recognized this kind of vehicle. It was a transport and control station for the trash compactor robots that were busy throughout the city, squishing garbage into neat cubes. Apparently, as her internal map display indicated, this trailer was her next target and she floated towards it.

She approached the rear end of the trailer. Inspecting the huge door that was covering the backside, the probe pondered how she was going to get in. Then her view rested on a lever at the door's side. She extended the fingers on her left arm and pulled the lever. With a loud motor noise, the door lowered, turning into a ramp, and revealed the insides of the trailer. The probe hovered in and curiously started looking around.

The windowless compartment was, aside from a control console, mainly occupied by several large rotation racks with hundreds of cubicles, each probably meant to accommodate one of the compactor robots. But right now, all the cubicles were empty. Perhaps the plant was...

A row of buttons at one side of the rack caught the probe's attention. One of them was hopefully going to set the rack in motion. Since the buttons were unlabelled, she pressed the topmost one, then uttered a nervous warble as the trailer door started closing. She quickly pressed the next button, which turned out to be the correct one. The rack started rotating slowly, revealing row after row of cubicles.

Before the door fully closed, the probe detected multiple fluorescent tubes on the trailer's ceiling. Luckily she had learned how to provide power to electrical devices, so she activated her electromagnetic induction projector. The tubes lit up, one after the other, bathing the compartment in a surreal illumination as the rear door closed and shut out the sunlight. The rack continued rotating, and the probe inspected each row of cubicles that rolled past.

And there was the plant. Sitting there right on display, a little potted plant was lying in one of the cubicles. The probe pressed the next button, and as luck would have it, the rack stopped rotating. Her eyes switched to satisfaction as she approached the cubicle and activated the scanner beam.

The first exercise of training stage three was complete. Though she found it a little too easy, the green light on her front confirmed that she had found her target.

* * *

_Directive T-2-01: Deliver to CASE training instructor._

Like so many times before, her mental display switched to an overview map of her current position. In a little while, her locator system would point out the shortest route to where she was to deliver her findings. She waited.

Odd, where was the route? The little dot indicating her position stayed where it was. This had never happened before, and a little worry was starting to show in her eyes.

_BIOS __Directive 2-42: Prepare acquisition_

Worry was replaced by puzzlement. _BIOS Directive_? The words the probe could not classify rang through her mind. But before she could wonder what they meant and what she had to do to accomplish the requested task, something happened to her body. Something awakened. She could feel a tingling sensation coming from the inside.

It tickled, like the time when the emitters that held her arms in place had been examined. But this time, the tickling did not stop. It became stronger, soon turning into a twitching, as if something was pinching her lightly on the inside. She began to dislike it, but she did not know what to do.

Then suddenly, the pinching subsided, and the noise started. At first it was only a little humming, but it quickly grew louder, like a powerful engine starting up. The probe wondered if it was the transport trailer that was about to pull out. But there was nobody there who might be controlling it. Then she realized the noise was coming from inside her!

Her eyes switched from concern to anxiety. What was happening? Then a thought came to her. She remembered how McCrow had told her about the biostasis function of her chest chamber, and that had been armed just before she had set off for this exercise. Maybe that was what caused this noise?

_BIOS Directive 2-43: Confirm acquisition._

A rotating circle of lights lit up on the probe's front. Then it hit her like a hammer. From one moment to the next, she lost control over her limbs. Her head went stiff and rotated to a neutral position. Her body flipped upright, her arms and fingers stretched out. Her eyes became large and round as panic rose inside her. She tried to move, but also the gravitic drive did not follow her commands anymore.

Her body was completely paralyzed as her blue scanning beam came on and flickered over the plant. No, this could not be caused by the biostasis chamber. Why would it do this to her? McCrow would have told her if something like this was supposed to happen!

"_Daav.__.. mAAcCrw..."_ she warbled with a failing voice. She tried calling out for McCrow, tried to call to him for help, but even the speech synthesis slipped out of her control. Then she realized that McCrow would not be able to hear her anyway, and she tried communicating over the radio link. _EVE Prototype One in distress, please help!_ But there was no reply.

_BIOS Directive 2-44__: Acquire specimen._

The probe could not do anything but watch helplessly as her chest chamber hatch opened. The uncontrollable gravitic drive sent shudders through her body as it tilted her a little, so that the tractor beam, which came on by itself, could pull the plant into the chamber. After the hatch had closed and sealed again, the next directive echoed through the probe's mind.

_BIOS__ Directive 2-45: Enter hibernation mode._

Hibernation mode? Whatever that was, it did not sound pleasant. The probe shuddered again as she felt something change. She was weakening. As her body's energy flow was being rerouted away from her A.I. core, it felt as if strength was slowly oozing out of her. She was used to entering standby mode, but this did not feel anything like the gentle transition to sleep that she knew. She did not like this! She did not _want_ to hibernate!

Despite the paralysis that kept her firmly in its grip, her artificial mind was fighting against the Operation System of her physical body. She was not going to give in that easily! She felt a desperate ferocity, and for a moment, it seemed that she regained her strength, that she might win over the functions of her hardware.

But then it hit her a second time. All of a sudden, her head and arms retracted and merged with her torso. Her eye display flickered to despair as another attempt to scream resulted in nothing more than a warbling noise.

Helpless, paralyzed and tied up, the probe screamed in her mind. No! _No!_ She did not want to hibernate! She wanted to _stay alive!_

Her artificial synapses were working furiously, fighting for her dear life. But her Operation System mercilessly transferred more and more power away from her consciousness. As her induction projector shut down, the fluorescent tubes went out, immersing the trailer in a sudden nightfall.

Engulfed in complete darkness, EVE's eyes glimmered faintly, showing her mortal fear. _EVE in distress, PLEASE, help!_ she communicated in a final attempt to reach McCrow.

As her consciousness faded, EVE barely noticed that something had changed, but she could not tell what it was. Not anymore. With her last waking thought, EVE hoped that McCrow would find her, would be able to revive her. Then the darkness seized her completely.

Her eye display flickered one last time and shut off. She dropped to the ground, hitting it with a thud, as the gravitic drive was forced into standby. There she hovered, silently, inactively.

The only light that could be seen was the green plant icon pulsing on her front.

* * *

McCrow was staring at his console screen, first in bewilderment, then in dismay. Thoughts were racing through his mind.

He had witnessed EVE enter the WALL-E trailer, power the light tubes and rotate the rack to find the plant. As soon as she had scanned it, the biostasis chamber had activated as planned. But then... Directives from EVE's BIOS had whizzed over the screen, and readings from her sensory interface had indicated that she had lost control over her hardware systems.

Then all of a sudden the lights had gone out, she had shut down and gone to standby. No, actually this was something different, her energy readings were dissimilar than when she was in standby.

The whole process had taken less than ten seconds, and afterwards he had found two messages from EVE on his screen. Two distress calls, asking him for help. No, _begging_ him for help. Something must have gone really wrong with the chamber, and he had not even had the chance to send a reply. He triggered the base alarm for engineering and transportation.

The lead engineer, Jeremy Stone, and two of his teammates rushed into McCrow's lab, asking worriedly what had happened. McCrow replied, in a great hurry, "Something is wrong with EVE. Her systems have shut down, and she sent two distress calls. We must get her back, now!"

The following explanation by the engineers left him unbelieving. They told him that there was no need to worry. EVE had entered 'hibernation mode', which was a normal part of the procedure and so to speak a deeper version of her usual standby. Obviously, the biostasis chamber, when fully activated, drew so much power that it needed nearly all the energy that EVE's circuits could provide. Hence all her higher functions, including the A.I. core, needed to be put in deep standby.

McCrow was furious. "Good lords, this isn't one of your trash compactor models! EVE's mind has reached a level of complexity that is comparable to that of an ape. Why the heck didn't you tell me this was going to happen? Do you have any idea what such a procedure must feel like for her? What it might do to her? How would you feel if you were bound in darkness and had your life force sucked out of you, and you had no idea what was happening?"

The three engineers just stood there, baffled, white-faced. "I'm... I'm sorry, I didn't think that..." Stone tried to apologize.

McCrow interrupted him. "No, obviously you didn't think. Now, we need to get her back to the lab. And pray to whatever God you believe in that there won't be any permanent damage." And he added to his colleagues from transportation who had arrived meanwhile, "Have a transport ready, stat!"

They rushed out of the room, followed by a still enraged McCrow. Less than a minute later they were racing through the training zone, on their way to the WALL-E trailer.

* * *

_Darkness. Darkness and emptiness. Nothing but impenetrable darkness._

_Non-existence._

After an indefinable period of time, a little something lit up. A little flashing something. That something grew brighter, slowly, gradually. Then it became recognizable. It was a tiny horizontal line, pulsing on EVE's internal display screen. The line started moving, started revealing symbols.

_Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator Probe__, Prototype One_

_Pre-Startup Checks... __Complete_

_Verifying __and enabling BIOS functions... Complete_

_Verifying and a__ctivating A.I. Core... Complete_

And there was light.

Flickering, EVE's eye display came to life. The sudden brightness in the computer operations lab where she was hovering momentarily overloaded her visual sensors, causing her to blink. Then realization hit her.

_She was alive!_ McCrow must have found her, he must have revived her!

She extended her head and fins and moved them. Deeply relieved she realized that they were following her commands once again, and so did the gravitic drive.

Still, EVE felt strange. Not strange in a negative sense, just strange, different than before. She remembered that she had already noticed this shortly before she had been shut down. Looking down at her moving arms, she could _feel_ them. She could feel herself. She knew where she was, what she was, _who_ she was. She also knew that there was no part of her programming or directives that was supposed to do this. What had happened to her?

She looked around and her view slowly cleared. Noticing that her frontal port was connected to a computer rack with a cable, she recognized McCrow who was anxiously looking at her and in turn at his console display. Rows of diagnostic messages were whizzing past on the screen.

"_Dave McCrow!"_ she warbled, floating over to him, almost ripping out the cable, both great relief and also a little accusation in her eyes. She stretched out her arms and wrapped them around his sides. He reciprocated, caressing her white plastic frame. _"Why not help?"_ she asked sadly.

McCrow answered, guilt-stricken. "I'm so sorry, EVE. I had no idea this was going to happen. And it all went so fast, it only took a few seconds. I didn't even have time to transmit a reply before you shut down."

"_Felt longer,"_ EVE answered. _"Felt like dying."_

McCrow realized how terrible it really had been for her. Slowly he shook his head. Also slowly he answered, "Oh, EVE. You know, in situations like this, mere seconds can become hours."

A little voice deep inside him noted that it was odd for a robot to talk about dying. But he was so overwhelmed by his emotions that the voice did not manage to reach his conscious thinking. Instead he repeated, "I'm truly sorry that I let you down. Can you forgive me?"

Looking at her, finding kindness and condonation in her eyes, he knew the answer.

* * *

The diagnostics had shown that nothing was physically wrong with EVE. All her systems worked perfectly, and she also seemed to be able to cope with the traumatic event she had gone through. She had not yet told McCrow though about the strange feelings she has had since that incident. She feared they would make her unable to fulfill her task, so she kept them to herself.

"_Duty,"_ she said and pointed a fin at herself, as she was hovering at McCrow's side, outside the base. _"No hibernate,"_ she added, shaking her head with begging eyes, and McCrow knew what she meant. She was still willing to pull through with her mission, but she could not stand the violent draining of her life force.

"I'm personally seeing to it that the hibernation process is fundamentally reworked, EVE. Our engineers are on it right now. But I fear that the shutting down itself cannot be avoided. Remember when I explained to you that the plant you find must be protected on the way back to earth?"

EVE nodded, and he continued. "It seems your body cannot be reworked to such an extent that your circuits could power the chamber in your chest without shutting down the rest of your systems."

EVE looked crestfallen for a moment.

"Don't worry, little dear. They promised me that it will be much more bearable once they've finished. They said you'd pull the plant into the chamber willingly, and then it would feel rather like gently gliding into a sleep, similar to the normal standby, with no forced motions or anything before. Would you be willing to try the procedure again then, with me watching over you?"

EVE raised her head and gazed at the roboticist, courage rising up in her. If he was present to help her if need be, she was going to do it. Letting the courage show in her eyes, she nodded.

"That's the spirit. I knew you were a brave girl, from the moment we had to dismount your arm back then. I promise, going to hibernation won't be any worse than that."

She remembered the dismounted arm and the following tickling. If all she had to endure to carry out her mission was being tickled or feeling a little embarrassed, she was sure willing to do it.

* * *

Jeremy Stone approached EVE who was hovering in the engineering lab, a connector cable in his hands. "EVE, I also want to apologize for what has happened to you in that trailer. It was me who was so ignorant as not to tell Dave what the hibernation process was going to do. I hope you can forgive me."

EVE showed a little smile. She was past being angry or fearful about what had happened, but she figured Stone should not get away all unpunished. She nodded, leaned forward and put her head close to Stone's. A little spark jolted over from her white frame to him, and he jumped back with a quick shriek, more out of surprise than pain. He chuckled, knowing that he got what he deserved.

After EVE was connected to the lab equipment, McCrow took over. He touched her fin. "EVE, we're ready when you are."

She nodded and held still. A little apprehension showed in her eyes as McCrow sat down at his console, where he executed the command that would initiate the hibernation procedure.

It felt like she was getting drowsy. Actually, it felt quite acceptable, even nice, not at all like the former forceful draining of her power. She looked around and noticed that the room around her became a little blurry. Her thoughts calmed down. She figured that this had to be similar to what the feeling of falling asleep was like for a human.

But she was no human. She was not actually tired. She was a robot, and being tired was not a function of her body. So then, why should she go to sleep? Something inside her told her that it was illogical to go to sleep when she was not tired. But she needed to, she wanted to pull through with McCrow's test.

Her eyes showed little sleepy lines as her drowsiness increased.

_Yes, good, let it happen. Just__ let the sleep overcome you. But what if McCrow was wrong? What if she did not wake up again? Nonsense, McCrow knew what he was doing. He had promised her that it would be alright. But he had been wrong once already. He had not known about what was going to happen in the trailer. What if he was wrong again now? What if there was more that the engineers had not told him?_

_No, Jeremy Stone __was an engineer, and he had apologized for the trailer. He now knew what he had to do. Just let it happen, just fall asleep. Everything will be alright. They all know what they are doing. Or do they?_

_She herself had not told them everything. __She had not told them about the strange feelings. What if those feelings were something bad? If they made her not wake up again? Nonsense, how could that be? They were just feelings. Just fall asleep, let it happen..._

But something deep inside EVE kept stirring...

* * *

The figures of data on McCrow's screen confirmed that EVE was soon going to enter her standby state. Her energy levels were continuously decreasing. He looked at the white probe, at his brave little girl.

But then something changed. The data readout showed some fluctuations. McCrow frowned and double-checked the data and the connection cable. Everything was fine there, but the fluctuations kept increasing. It seemed as if something inside EVE did not want to her fall asleep, as if something tried to push her energy levels up again.

EVE, what are you doing? he thought. He pondered interrupting the sequence. Something was not right.

Suddenly EVE's energy levels spiked. They increased way past her normal waking state for a second, then fell back to normal. The hibernation sequence had been interrupted, but it was not McCrow who had done that. He looked, totally baffled, first at his screen and then at EVE. She was bobbing gently, looking at him, her eyes showing her usual state of alertness.

EVE too was puzzled. Instead of falling asleep, like she had expected, she all of a sudden felt completely refreshed and awake. The drowsiness was gone. _"No hibernate?"_ she asked.

McCrow was still perplexed as he examined the data that his console had recorded. No, this could not be. _EVE, what have you done?_

"Hold a minute, EVE," he said and executed a command to have the console scan EVE's BIOS functions.

Then, after double-checking the results, he stared at the console. The shutdown had been interrupted alright. But it had neither been him nor the devices in the lab that had done that. It had been _EVE herself_. Her artificial mind had overridden the functions of her BIOS, completely incapacitating the hibernation procedure.

Her mind had won over her body.

A suspicion rose in McCrow. A fantastic, unthinkable suspicion. Yet there was the strong evidence, he just had not seen it so far. He regarded the white robot who was looking at him out of her curious blue eyes, then he started to sweat as he entered another command into his console. He instructed it to analyze EVE's neural network activity.

He froze as he looked over the analysis results. He had the console repeat the process, then repeat it again. But the values were unambiguous. They showed a very distinct activity pattern in EVE's neural network system.

McCrow remembered the Neuronal Biology course. It had been a requirement for his Robotics degree, since robotic neural networks emulated the behavior and function of actual organic brains. And there was no doubt in his mind that there was only one species on the planet Earth whose brains showed an activity pattern like the one he was now witnessing in EVE's artificial mind.

McCrow looked at EVE with a mixture of incredulity and fascination. It was all so clear now. Her curiosity, her happy giggles, her personality, her talking about dying. Gradually matured by her training and interactions, and finally triggered by the traumatic experience of the forced hibernation, an unprecedented event had taken place in her artificial mind.

He stood up, approached the white probe and took her fins into his hands. She looked at him with a gentle questioning expression in her eyes, uttering something indiscernible with her adorable warbling voice.

She had developed true self-awareness. She had developed sentience.

_EVE's __artificial consciousness had been uplifted to sentience._

McCrow looked back at her in sheer awe. There were no words that could possibly and adequately describe what he felt at this moment.

He realized that he had just witnessed the birth of a new species.

The _automato sapiens_, the sentient robot.

* * *

News about McCrow's findings had spread like a wildfire throughout the base and also to the CASE institute. EVE's training sessions had been cancelled. She needed no further training. She knew all she needed to know to fulfill her mission, and anything else she would find out on her own.

The base personnel regarded her with different eyes now. She was no longer just a probe but a person. A person with her own identity, her own personality. And what a personality she had! After the events with the overridden shutdown procedure, she had matured, from a playful child to a considerate young adult. But aside from her gentle and amicable demeanor, she had – to everyone's delight –retained a good amount of her former playfulness. And of her curiosity.

It was early in the afternoon, a few days after the discovery of her sentience, and most of the base personnel was getting off their work and having lunch in the cafeteria. McCrow had explained to EVE that humans did not gain their energy from a high-tech gluon reactor like she did, but had to take in nourishment and use the chemical energy stored within.

EVE was hovering through the base corridors, curiously regarding the many strange objects that she saw, when her auditory sensors reported a chatty noise coming from the end of a hallway. She moved towards that noise and passed through a door which led into a large room. Multiple groups of people were sitting around tables, eating their lunch.

As EVE floated into the room, several of the people turned around to greet her. Then she noticed something odd. Randomly, some of the humans uttered chuckles and smirked for a moment, then continued talking to their colleagues. EVE's eyes flickered to a quizzical shape. She noticed that this strange phenomenon did not occur at random, but it rather seemed to move from table to table in a sequential order. Curiously she floated in to intercept the sequence and find out what it was about.

As she approached a table she observed something on the floor. A little robot, maybe 30 centimeters in height, painted in black and white and showing yellow eye squares, was roaming around there on wheels. Attached to his conjunct arms was a rotating tube-shaped cleaning brush that produced a whirring noise when activated. The robot was wheeling around the tables, busily cleaning out any crumbs or leftovers that had fallen to the ground.

EVE slowly hovered into his path, and the little robot froze in place as he saw her. He appeared a little scared by the huge white egg-shaped thing that was floating in front of him. He quite probably had never seen anything like this before.

The white probe giggled a little and looked gently at the cleaning unit, whose small eyes displayed a mix of fear and curiosity. She leaned down and tried to make her voice as calming as possible as she asked, _"Name?"_

The little robot hesitated a bit and then chirped back, _"M-O"_.

EVE pointed a fin at herself and warbled, _"EVE-uh"_. Then she added, _"Directive?"_

Instead of a response, M-O raised his brush and let it whirr for a moment. He regarded her, and coming to the conclusion that she was no danger, his directive programming took over. A warning message appeared on his internal display.

_Foreign Contaminant__ 15%_

* * *

As a robot whose task it was to obliterate all kinds of dirt or dust, be it simple inorganic material or microbes, he was equipped with a detector that allowed him to uncover material that was – according to his programming – not to be tolerated in his current environment.

That detector now informed him that EVE was not completely "clean" by the base's standards. After all, she used to roam around the streets of the trash infested city on a daily basis, trying to find hidden plants and fulfilling other training objectives. Apparently the robot's detector was very sensitive and spotted all those traces of dirt that the personnel assigned to cleaning EVE's shell after her exercises had overlooked.

M-O unlocked his brush, rolled up to EVE and started guiding the brush over her shell, from the bottom all the way up to where he could possibly reach. EVE looked surprised, then giggled and bobbed a little. The brush was tickling her!

But she held still, appreciating the little guy's adorable attempt clean her up. Then the whirring of the brush stopped, and the robot instead began jumping on his tiny wheels, holding up his arms at EVE, accompanied by agitated chirps.

EVE looked at the white robot inquiringly, then she understood. He badly wanted to clean her upper parts as well but could not reach them. With a smile on her eyes, she gently took him in her fins and lifted him up. M-O squeaked happily and continued in his endeavor.

He brushed away every single dust particle that he could find. As he let his tube whirr inside the bowl-shaped part under EVE's head, she felt an intense tickling that enticed even more giggles and bobbing from her, including irritating motions of her arms.

"_Mo-momomo-momo!"_, buzzed the little robot, scared that EVE might drop him. Apologetically, she held still, bearing the tickles as good as she could. Her eye expression showed that, if she had had teeth, she'd be clenching them with determination.

Then the ordeal was over, and she was once again as shiny and smooth as she used to be when coming fresh from the factory.

M-O's internal display showed another message._ All clean_. He locked his brush, turned into a neutral position and uttered a content squeak. EVE chuckled and carefully lowered the little robot down to the ground, leaned in and petted him gently with her fin.

M-O chirped, then he rolled away, looking for the next thing that might need treatment.

EVE watched him move around for a bit, then she noticed a scientist following the robot at a distance. He held an object in his hand that resembled one of those data pads McCrow used to take with him.

As the person noticed EVE, he stopped, smiled and greeted. "Oh, hello there, EVE! I'm Stef, one of the A.I. programmers here. I guess you're wondering what was with that little guy who just cleaned you?"

EVE nodded and trilled, a little accusation in her voice, _"Tickles!"_

Stef grinned. "Yes, I'm sorry, his programming does not yet include sentient probes that can feel tickles. He's the prototype for a new brand of robots, a Microbe Obliterator. I'm one of his designers, and we're conducting a field test here to see if he's working as intended and how he's interacting with humans and other robots." Looking at EVE's once more shiny shell, he added, "it seems his interaction with you was quite successful."

EVE chuckled and nodded again, and Stef continued. "If he checks out, his brand is going to be used for cleaning and disinfection aboard the huge fully automated BnL starliners. I'm here to watch over him, since he still needs some bugfixes, mostly for a problem with following preset paths. He sometimes just strays off the route I have programmed for him in this room and decides to roam around freely."

Noticing that M-O had obviously once more left that path and was wheeling across the room, he interrupted and dashed after the little robot. As M-O was about to make another customer of the cafeteria giggle from his cleaning antics, the programmer picked the little guy up, carried him over and put him back down.

As the cleaning robot was released, he once more followed his indicated path, but EVE was quite confident that it would not be long before he strayed off again. And she doubted that it was due to a programming error.

With a warm knowing smile, she pondered that, although she had only talked to M-O for a little while, the little guy had a lot of potential. She could already tell that she and him had much more in common than just the color of their shells.

**  
Author's Notes**

Thus ends "Automato Sapiens", and now we know how, in "my world", EVE became sentient.

I hope my attempt to make the "revelation" chapter worthy of a Thus Spoke Zarathustra has worked out. :)

I also hope you enjoyed reading this episode as much as I enjoyed writing it, since it contained something very special: the _titular event_ for the Binary Uplift series.

The chapter with the forced hibernation worked out as intended if readers from now on regard a certain movie scene in WALL-E's trailer with different eyes.

I "hid" a subtle indication in form of a linguistic means in the text, showing at which point EVE became sentient. Up to that point in the WALL-E trailer, EVE had always been referred to as "the probe" or "the robot" when mentioned in third-person narration, but never (except when a character's thoughts were expressed) as "EVE". From that point on though, she's (also and mostly) referred to as "EVE".

I put the M-O prototype in as per a request from one reviewer. I thought it a fitting ending to have EVE with her newly acquired sentience interact with another soon-to-be main character.


	7. The Cold Equations

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**  
Episode ****6**

**  
Author's Notes**

This is the fourth of five episodes in the plotline "Prototype One" dealing with the "birth" and early adventures of the first EVE prototype.

After EVE has become fully sentient in the end of the last episode, we now witness the final preparations for her extraterrestrial vegetation evaluation missions.

We have McCrow observe the first launch from mission control. Afterwards, out of an ordinary situation, a hopefully minor problem arises.

Warning: this episode, and especially the following, might contain emotional rollercoasters. ;)

The spaceship in the first chapter, _Columba_, is not a Space Shuttle with a spelling error. Its name refers to the Latin name of a star constellation whose English name is "Noah's Dove". When reading the following quote from the "Noah's Ark" narration (source: Wikipedia), you'll surely notice a certain striking similarity. _"Noah sent a dove out, but it returned having found nowhere to land. After a further seven days, Noah again sent out the dove, and it returned with an olive leaf in its beak, and he knew that the waters had subsided."_

**Caution:** This mini-series is about emotions, about happy times and tragic events. The chains of argumentation presented therein may not always be 100% logical. The author would like to ask you to generously overlook that fact and just enjoy the ride. _Story trumps rules_. ;)

Many thanks to co-author **Unreal.2K7** for contributing some chapters, for ideas, brainstorming and proofreading!

**  
"The Cold Equations"**

(Episode 4 in "Prototype One")

The _Columba_ was the first space vessel built by humans that was equipped with both a gravitic sublight drive and a high-speed hyperdrive. It was standing on its launch pad, majestically stretching heavenwards. Actually it did not even need a launch pad, since as a gravitic ship it was not propelled by something as crude as a rocket, but by projected gravitational force fields. Upon launch, it would just sail smoothly and almost silently upwards, much like the dove it was named after, and not with a tumultuous hellfire like its predecessors.

The pad, which was normally used for large cargo vessels, also appeared oversized for the elegant and rather small Columba. After all, the fully automated ship had been designed with velocity and acceleration in mind, since it was meant to take EVE out to the stars, to explore and evaluate planets. It was outfitted with the fastest hyperdrive built so far, yet to fly across the Milky Way galaxy with its diameter of over a hundred thousand light years it would still need about six months. The planets in question therefore had to be relatively close to the Earth. But with all the recent technological advancement, it was assumed to be just a matter of time before the whole galaxy would be within mankind's reach.

Oliver Kranz, the flight director for the Columba's maiden voyage, looked at his computer screen in the Mission Control room, which printed a message from one of his assistant flight controllers. He was informed that the transit cart which was to deliver EVE to her capsule in the spaceship was ready to roll out.

"Transit, Flight. Confirmed, go for delivery," Kranz spoke into his headset.

The vehicle, which looked like an oversized golf cart with a storage compartment on top, wheeled across the launch field. After arriving at the vessel, a robotic arm reached into the compartment, and as it rose up towards an access hatch at the capsule's side, it was holding the inactive EVE probe in its grip.

The arm maneuvered the white probe through the hatch and installed her in a storage alcove. Force field belts activated to prevent EVE from tumbling out. Then the arm retracted and the delivery cart wheeled off. Kranz had watched the procedure on his screen and instructed, "Alright, probe is securely in place. Seal the hatch and begin pre-launch checks."

* * *

Fantastic, McCrow pondered as he was wandering thoughtfully through the museum hall of the Forthright Space Center in Florida. The center had been built on the grounds of the former Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Some of the old buildings, among them the famous vehicle assembly building, were actually still standing and in use. Of course, it was nowhere large enough to house the gigantic starliners that they were constructing nowadays, but for smaller vessels it was still sufficient.

McCrow was very fond not only of twentieth century musical films, but also of the early era of space exploration that had started around the same time. After all, fifty percent of his current employer's business was the very same thing. So he had taken the opportunity of his stay at the space center for a visit to its famous museum where dozens of old space vessels, some of them being scale models, some being live vehicles, were on display.

"So this is how it all started," he mumbled to himself as he regarded replicas of the famous Sputnik satellite and a Mercury space capsule. "We've indeed come a long way since then. But sometimes I'd give almost anything for a chance to be part of these first steps into a future of space flight."

Now they were building spaceships that virtually were flying cities. The latest coronation of BnL's starliner fleet, the Axiom, was said to house over a hundred thousand people on a luxurious cruise.

A thought occurred to McCrow. The Axiom was being built in a shipyard on the center's premises. Maybe there was time for a quick visit before he had to leave again.

He was interrupted by a message from Mission Control. Apparently the Columba was ready for launch, so he turned around and hastened out of the museum. Not for anything did he want to miss this event.

* * *

McCrow was looking over Kranz' shoulder as the flight director requested the final "go or no go" confirmation from his controllers. Gravitics, trajectory, communication, automation, one acknowledgement light on his display after the other switched to "go", and after the last one had lit up green, Kranz contacted the launch pad operators. "Pad leader, this is mission control. We are go for launch."

"Confirmed. Initiating final countdown. T minus 60 seconds."

The large digits of the countdown display caught McCrow's eyes before his view swept over to a monitor that showed the interior of the capsule. He observed the white EVE probe sitting quietly in her alcove, feelings of pride and anticipation coming over him. His girl was about to embark on both a huge adventure and a mission that could decide the fate of mankind.

As the count continued, McCrow first noticed and then contracted the increasing tension among the flight controllers. No matter how many missions they conducted, something like this would never become simple routine.

At T minus 40, Kranz once more verified the "go" with those of his controllers whose positions were directly involved in the success of the launch.

Then, twenty seconds before zero the pad operator reported back. "Countdown halted at T minus 20 seconds. Test successful, everything in the green here."

"Confirmed, and likewise here. Simulated launch pad test completed," Kranz replied, and added toward his flight controllers, "Good work, gentlemen! Okay, let's get Mr. McCrow's white lady out of the capsule, and then move the ship back to the assembly hall."

McCrow grinned a little as Kranz turned around. Shaking his hand, he said, "Thank you for the chance to watch this from the control room!"

"Anytime, Mr. McCrow. It doesn't happen every day that we have the opportunity to get a sentient robot en-route to save the world, and that on the fastest ship ever built."

"Scheduled launch day is in two weeks I've heard? I guess we'll be returning to the Los Angeles base until then. Except... do you think we might take a look at the Axiom before we depart?"

"Of course, take your time and take a good look at her. She's a real treat – for those lucky enough to be aboard when she launches."

Quite true, the roboticist thought and wondered if anyone from his team might be one of those lucky guys.

* * *

As McCrow and a technician from the space center stepped out onto the launch field, the delivery cart containing EVE came to a halt next to the mission control building. A hatch on the compartment's side opened and revealed the inactive white probe inside.

"Okay, thanks, I'll take it from here," McCrow said to the technician who nodded and waited until McCrow had pulled the robot out of her transport box. Since EVE's gravitic drive held her hovering neutrally just above the ground, he required barely any strength to move her. After the cart had pulled out, the roboticist entered a command sequence into EVE's front buttons, waking her up from standby mode.

Her eye display flickered on and she extended her head and fins. "Welcome back, dear. Hope you slept well?" McCrow said.

She smiled quickly and nodded, then asked, _"Successful?"_

"Yes, the launch simulation went great. The ship will be ready in two weeks, and you'll be off exploring foreign planets. I bet you're looking forward to this."

She nodded again and warbled, _"Very much!"_

"If you'd like, I can show you the recording your observation camera produced. Let me connect the projector."

McCrow produced a white stick from his pocket and plugged it into EVE's visual data port. The holoprojection glimmered on and showed what had happened since EVE had gone to standby in preparation for the launch test. They witnessed from her perspective as she was put into the delivery cart, had been hauled up into the capsule, waited for the countdown to begin and be interrupted, and be taken out of the capsule again for McCrow to retrieve her from the cart.

Just as the playback was finished, Charles Dutton from the CASE astrometrics department came out of the mission control building and joined them.

"Hi Charles! I see you also could not let the opportunity pass to smell some real space flight air, instead of just looking at distant stars through your telescopes."

"Hey Dave, hey EVE! You bet I couldn't. This is really great. As soon as the final star in this universe is cataloged and our department is no longer needed, I'm gonna apply for a position here."

McCrow chuckled. It was of course, for several reasons, quite improbable that this was ever going to happen.

"Have you seen the Axiom?" Dutton continued. "She's so huge! That's no spaceship, it's a damn flying city!"

"I haven't seen her for real yet, but I'll make sure to do so before we depart. But what about getting a snack first? I'm positively hungry, and I've heard the cafeteria here makes some great space food!"

Dutton agreed and invited EVE to join them, if not for a tasty sandwich, then maybe the lunchroom personnel would be able to arrange for a can of oil to keep her cogs and gears in smooth working order.

McCrow chuckled at EVE's offended look. "Good Charles here is just pulling your leg, EVE. That is, he would be, if you had any of those. Come on, let's go." He grabbed one of EVE's fins and pulled her along. Dutton joined in the laughter as they headed towards the cafeteria.

* * *

"You can't seriously be thinking that this food is even remotely healthy, Charles," McCrow joked as they were sitting together around a canteen table. The roboticist had ordered a dish whose primary color was a luscious green, while the food on Dutton's plate appeared rather high in fat and cholesterol and not in vitamins.

"Don't even get me started on my food preferences!" Dutton replied. "And furthermore, there's at least one or two lettuce leaves between those layers of meat."

"Yeah you wish. I bet that's just some synthetic stuff they put in between there, to ease the soon-to-be heavyweight customers' consciences."

"Is not!" Dutton countered. "It said on the lunch menu that it was actual factual salad."

"Paper doesn't blush, you know." McCrow replied with a smirk.

"Now that's the last straw. You know, there _is_ a way to settle this dispute once and for all." He turned around and looked at the white probe who was hovering right behind them, a definite grin on her eye display. "EVE, would you be so kind and scan this Double-Whopper Meat Burger for vegetation? I suppose if _you_ confirm that it is real salad, even Mr. Health Preacher here will be satisfied."

EVE chuckled with bobbing arms, pointed a fin to the burger and said, _"Directive."_ She floated up a little to get in a good position and activated her scanning beam.

Or at least she tried to.

"Well?" Dutton said, getting a little impatient.

The expression on EVE's eyes flickered to concern. _"No work"_, she warbled.

The smile vanished off McCrow's face as well. "What is it, EVE? Something wrong with your scanner?"

"_Malfunction,"_ the probe confirmed and looked at the roboticist.

"Oh, don't worry. It's surely just a glitch in the scanner's hardware. Who knows what Mark messed up when he did that last upgrade. We'll have it checked out when we return to the base."

EVE nodded, and amusement returned into her eyes despite a little remaining worry. She once more pointed her fin to the burger, then to Dutton, and warbled, _"Directive?"_

Dutton gave McCrow a questioning look. The roboticist chuckled and said, "She'd like to know if you still consider it your directive to eat this thing, even without her confirmation that it is maybe about two percent healthy."

"You bet I do!" Dutton said and picked the burger up, taking a fair bite out of it.

McCrow watched with pretended disgust. "Too bad we didn't take this M-O prototype from the base cafeteria with us. I bet his 'foreign contaminant' scanner would go off beyond its scale on this thing."

"Damn you vegetarians!" Dutton mumbled, having quite visible trouble, especially at the letter 'v', to avoid bits of burger leaving his stuffed mouth the wrong way.

McCrow laughed. "You know, fifty grams up and it's getting inarticulate."

As they continued their lunch, McCrow could, despite the fun they were having, not help but experience a little foreshadowing of some much bigger trouble that might be waiting ahead, even though he did not want to admit it to himself.

* * *

Kranz had not exaggerated at all when he had called the Axiom a "real treat". On the contrary, it appeared to McCrow like the understatement of the year. No, rather of the twenty-second century, at least so far. Although he had heard about the starliner's sheer monstrous dimensions, seeing it for real with his own eyes was something completely different.

Also the term "shipyard" was a huge understatement. The place where the ship was being built was more than a shipyard. It was a city by itself, which was definitely necessary to build a vessel that was over 4 kilometers long and 2 kilometers high.

McCrow, Dutton and EVE were observing the ship from a distance, far enough away so that they could overlook its whole length. With them was Neil Stafford, the general foreman of the Axiom's construction crew, who had personally taken them to the observation place in a hovercar. When they concentrated, they could spot some construction personnel and robots, rather appearing like tiny ants, which were busy doing unrecognizable work at the vessel's outer hull.

Since EVE had no means to do a real scale comparison yet, she regarded the gigantic starliner rather unemotionally, while Dutton was the first to raise his voice. "Oh yeah, this proves it. Shelby indeed does go the whole hog."

"He sure does," McCrow replied. "Good thing that the gravitic dry-dock is functioning as advertised. I don't really want to know how much this thing weighs and what would happen to it and the ground underneath if..." He preferred not to finish his sentence. "Well, I wonder if it might be possible to see her interior."

"Normally we allow only the construction crew aboard at this point, but we can sure make an exception for your group," Stafford replied and motioned invitingly towards the hovercar. "You're no everyday guests after all. There's not much to see yet though, we've just started with the interior fitting a few weeks ago."

They boarded their vehicle and pulled out towards the Axiom. EVE was dashing alongside the hovercar and could, like often, not refrain from pulling some flying antics underway.

Although they were driving quite fast, the tour still took definitely longer than they had anticipated, which noticeably added to the sense of huge dimensions that the ship created. As they reached the Axiom, they did not even need to disembark the car. They could simply drive it into the ship, through one of the giant cargo access hatches which currently served as on-ramps for the numerous construction vehicles.

* * *

They arrived in an enormous hall where robots, under human supervision, were putting the equipment into the floor that would, when finished, enable it to act as a driveway for automatically controlled transport carts.

While the sheer outside size of the Axiom had not been a real incentive to EVE, her senses now were awakened as she regarded all the strange and new scenes around her. She looked at McCrow and trilled, _"Explore?"_

The roboticist pondered and looked at the foreman, "Well, if Mr. Stafford has no objections?" Stafford smiled and shook his head, and McCrow added, "Okay, but try not to break anything, okay?"

The white probe put on an "as if I ever would" look. As she darted off, Stafford raised his voice again. "There's not yet much here that she could break, anyway. Aside from that, maybe it's not a bad thing if she gets a little acquainted with the layout of this vessel. I've heard rumors that, once the EVE probes go to mass production, some of them are to be stationed aboard cruise ships, to use those as bases for foreign planet exploration."

"Hm. Yes, maybe that's not a bad idea. Once our hyperdrive technology is improved so that also humans can travel further out, it might be worthwhile..."

Stafford had watched EVE float around a corner and interrupted McCrow. "Sorry to cut you off, Mr. McCrow, but I suggest your EVE not enter this corridor over there. I completely forgot that my crew is currently working on the artificial gravity generators, which causes the projectors in that area to create field fluctuations. Those might interfere with her..."

He could not finish his sentence either, as they both were interrupted by a loud, extended, multi-tonal "clunk" from around the corner, followed by a surprised warble.

They hastened down the hall to catch up with EVE, and as they turned into the corridor, they found her lying on the floor, on her back, trying in vain to push herself up with her fins.

McCrow was quite intrigued by how many different emotions a simple eye display could convey at the same time. There was a little embarrassment, also some annoyance and discomfort, but mostly amusement. He grinned, barely able to stifle a chuckle. "Aww, poor girl. Now look what gravity has brought to the ground. Good thing your shell is definitely sturdier than one would expect, considering its form and color."

EVE warbled again and stretched out her fins. _"Help?"_

McCrow pondered. "I suppose it would be too much hassle to deactivate the field projectors or to get a hoverdolly over here." Then he added towards Dutton, "Alright, let's just carry her out of this area. Luckily our engineers have become quite adept at lightweight construction."

The roboticist and his colleague each grabbed one of EVE's arms, and struggling a little, they lifted her up. "Okay, relatively lightweight," McCrow commented. The electromagnetic field projectors in her arms fortunately had no trouble working against the weight of her torso. Accompanied by some groans and trills, they carried the probe around the corner, back into the main hall. A soft humming emerged from EVE's gravitic drive and announced that it was coming back to life, and a few seconds later, the robot was hovering on her own again.

While EVE showed thankful eyes, McCrow figured that it might be a good idea to improve the shielding of her drive. Otherwise she might find that her shell was not sturdy enough after all, if the drive failed due to some gravitational anomaly while she was flying a few kilometers above the surface of a foreign planet.

* * *

Two days after their excursion to the space center, McCrow and his robotics and engineering colleagues were analyzing the problem with EVE's scanner. It had turned out that the scanner's hardware itself was functioning perfectly. Which was, in comparison, something that he would not have wished for.

He really hated it when his hunches came true. At least when they were hunches that had the potential to lead to disaster.

While EVE was still being examined in engineering, the roboticist sat in his quarters, studying his computer screen which showed a visual representation of the processes in EVE's neural network. And he did not like at all what he was seeing. He had asked his colleague James Michelson to join him, to make sure that he did not overlook anything. But Michelson came to the same troublesome conclusion as McCrow.

He pointed at a screen. "Yes, there it is. Look there. The command signals just aren't getting through to the lower level neuron layers. It seems that multiple connection strains are broken. This is really bad."

McCrow nodded bleakly. The longer he stared at the screen, the stronger the feeling of uneasiness became inside him. Realization rose slowly but steadily that this indeed was really bad. EVE's neural network had been damaged. It was comparable to a human whose tongue and vocal chords were working fine, but the speech center in his brain was incapacitated.

Thinking back, he remembered the energy level spike during the second test of the hibernation function. He also remembered that EVE had not needed to use her scanner since that incident, so no one could have noticed that it had become inoperable.

"You're right. We must find a way to fix this, or EVE isn't going anywhere to search for plants. There's just no chance without her scanner.'

They looked at each other with gloomy faces. They were both well aware that it was virtually impossible to fix something like this in a neural network as complex as EVE's. Not with the facilities that were available at the time.

If they had a year or two, they could probably finish the reverse-engineering and analysis software they were working on. But at the time, it was nowhere as sophisticated as it needed to be to work through EVE's mind. Not by like eight or nine orders of magnitude. And they did not have a year or two. The transport ship would be ready in two weeks, and even if they did not launch right away, there was the impending disaster of the dying vegetation.

McCrow furiously started pondering alternatives. What about building another probe? Might they have enough time to do that? Maybe, if the vegetation decay situation improved considerably. They had needed almost nine months to build the first prototype. Even if building a second one would last only half as long, they still needed to re-train it. So it still all depended on how much time they'd have left.

And what about sending a human crew with a biolab instead? McCrow lost heart. They could not send humans. The strain of the quantum displacement effect associated with hypertravel over such long distances would rip their brains apart. After all, there was a reason that all those cruise ships were bobbing around in close proximity to the Earth, maybe a light year out. Some of the planets they had to examine though were ten thousand times as far away. Maybe, if they had five years, hyperspace technology would make sufficient advancement, abolishing the ill side-effects. But they did not have five years.

He came to the saddening conclusion that EVE did have to go on her mission, there was no other way. He looked at Michelson again who, judging by the terrified expression on his face, was thinking along the same lines.

* * *

"Don't tell me you want to... No way. We're _not_ going to do that." McCrow said with determination.

Michelson was heart-stricken, feeling ashamed for his very thoughts. "Do you see another way? Please, tell me that you do."

McCrow hung his head. No, actually he did not see any other chance. If they did not get enough time to build a second prototype, the only way would be to... McCrow's heart refused to even consider this option, but his mind could not find a way around it.

EVE's neural network had to be reset. Returned to its initial configuration, where the command connections to the scanner's BIOS were still operational.

Which, the roboticist pondered, would very probably mean the end of the EVE they knew and loved.

It was possible to store and duplicate most of an A.I.'s acquired skills and some of its experiences, which was the usual way to outfit production models with the previously achieved training results. But there was no way to reliably preserve the parts that held EVE's personality, her soul and spirit_._ Chances that they would survive a reset were very slim at best.

And since EVE was a sentient being now, it was unthinkable to simply force this on her. It would be nothing short of an execution. If there really was no other way out of this, EVE herself would have to...

McCrow shook his head. A part of the desperation on his face was replaced by defiance. "No, before we go down this road, we shall do everything we can so that we don't have to put her through this. Maybe we'll get lucky with the deadline, maybe we can think of something else. Until then, I'm gonna continue work on the analysis software. Are you with me?"

Michelson looked skeptical, but then nodded. They both knew it was a nearly impossible task, but they were still going to try it. "One thing though," he said. "I think we should not tell EVE yet what the real problem is. Maybe we _do_ get lucky, then there's no need to worry her."

McCrow pondered, and then agreed. It would not be easy to hide it from her, but Michelson was right. EVE had enough on her mind with the upcoming mission.

* * *

"_Tickles!"_ the white probe complained, her fins wiggling a little. Jeremy Stone was poking around in the bowl-shaped area under her head with the umpteenth diagnostic tool.

"Sorry, EVE," Stone said a little irritably. He was still unable to find what might be causing her problems. He had tested the scanner itself, its connections, the BIOS processors, and all of them had checked out okay. He was about to run out of ideas.

EVE too was wondering what might be wrong with her. Activating the scanner and letting it sweep over objects or along the ground had become second nature to her. Now, when she tried to do it, nothing happened. The feeling of being incapable to control her body, even if it was just a part of it, reminded her of the sensations when she had been forced into hibernation. She shuddered, trying to cast off these unpleasant memories.

As McCrow entered the engineering lab, a quick smile flickered over her eyes. Maybe he had good news. But his face did not light up when he stepped towards her. He exchanged a few words with Stone that she could not overhear, and the engineer's face momentarily darkened as well. Then they stopped talking and looked at the probe.

"_Problem_?" she warbled, concern showing in her eyes.

Stone tried to look confident as he replied, "No EVE, on the contrary. Dave had an idea what might be wrong with your scanner hardware. Something I hadn't thought of so far. I'm gonna check it out right away. If his idea turns out to be correct, it might take a bit to repair it, but you'll be alright before launch day."

EVE looked at McCrow, a little confused, but also he was smiling reassuringly at her. He stepped closer and caressed her fin. "You're gonna be fine, little dear. I need to take care of some urgent affairs now, so I'll leave you in Jeremy's capable hands. I'm sure he can fix you."

The probe nodded and warbled something indiscernible as McCrow left the lab. She was still confused. She felt that something was not right.

She wondered how it could be that Dave McCrow, an A.I. developer, might think of a hardware problem that Jeremy Stone, the lead engineer, had not thought of.

* * *

An hour later, EVE was glad to finally get out of the engineering lab. Floating along a corridor, she figured she could use a diversion from her worries, and from all the poking and tickles of the examinations.

Since it was already late in the evening, all of the office spaces along the corridor were dark, except for one whose door was left ajar. EVE approached the door, and remembering the lessons about good manner McCrow had done with her, she knocked.

"Come in," a friendly female voice sounded. EVE opened the door and floated in, finding herself in what appeared to be a designer's office. She recognized numerous papers with sketch drawings covering tables and hanging from the walls, some of which were showing, to her big surprise, herself!

"Oh, hey there! What an honor that you pay me a visit. I'm Jennifer, Jennifer Ivy." The handsome young woman stood up from her chair at a computer workplace, approached the white probe and stretched out her hand to shake EVE's.

"_EVE-uh",_ the robot said, pointing a fin to herself.

Jennifer grinned. "Yes, I know who you are. If anyone knows, then me." She pointed at the drawing papers and then at her computer screen. It showed an animated 3D model of the EVE probe which was performing several motion sequences, from operating its limbs over extending and reattaching its fingers to various eye expressions.

EVE regarded the monitor in puzzlement. Then she pointed at it and warbled, _"EVE-uh?"_

"That's right, so to speak. It's a graphical representation of your framework. I'm working as a model designer for CASE, and, well, for all intents and purposes, I designed you. At least your outward appearance. I hope you like how it turned out?"

"_OOooh!"_ EVE warbled, looking down at herself. Then she nodded and added, _"Very!"_

"Glad to hear! And I see they still haven't extended your vocal synthesizer to have you utter complete sentences. I guess I should have a serious talk with Ben about that."

EVE shook her head. _"Like!"_

"What, you like it this way, capable of saying only single words?" Jennifer looked incredulous.

"_Like."_ the robot repeated, nodding this time.

Jennifer chuckled. "Alright, why not. Actually it befits you. It adds to your charming appearance. And luckily Dave showed me how I can capture your A.I. core's internal messages on my computer."

A thought came to EVE. There was one thing about her design that had puzzled – and annoyed – her from the very first time she had had to do an exercise outside. She pointed to the bowl-shaped upper end of her torso and said, _"Rain?"_

Jennifer understood what EVE meant, also without checking her console. The probe was obviously wondering why she had designed her head cavity in such a way that it downright invited raindrops to accumulate inside it. Not that the water constituted a real problem, but it interfered with her electromagnetic field projectors, and that just felt terribly uncomfortable. So she needed to regularly tip herself over to pour out the water when she was operating outside in the rain.

"Ooh yes, that water collector up there," Jennifer said. "I'm sorry about that, but we actually owe that to our engineering friends. Apparently all your cavities need to have this kind of shape, has something to do with the interaction of the magnetic fields that keep your head and arms in place."

She gently patted the robot's arm as she continued. "I promise, for the next generation of probe frameworks I'm gonna bug the engineers until they come up with a better solution for this. Or maybe they'll be able to re-work your body as well."

EVE smiled and nodded. So there was still hope that she would not end up as a watering can, once she had fulfilled her mission.

* * *

A few days later, McCrow was sitting in his private quarters, alone in the darkness of the night, staring at the error messages on his computer screen.

_Process aborted in phase 7.__ Specified network parameters too complex. Analysis failed._

Working all day and night, he and Michelson had managed to improve their analysis software by a considerable factor. McCrow's hope was that, if they were able to make some more progress, the software would be able to at least analyze the part of EVE's network that supposedly held the scanner interface portion. But it was this "supposedly" that constituted the new problem. There was no way to reliably tell which part of the billions of artificial neurons was the one in question. McCrow was torn back and forth between accepting the futility of his attempt and a ferocious will to save EVE.

He did not want to give up prematurely, not before he tried every last option and worked till the last day. EVE would not deserve him giving up. He would not let her down, not again.

Regarding the many screenfuls of data that whizzed past his console display, he wondered if they will ever be able to really retrace how EVE's mind worked. He had created it; he had trained it to operate the body that it was bound in. But EVE had developed her whole personality and sentience on her own. She herself surely did not understand either how her mind worked.

Of course not, how could she. How could a robot understand how its mind worked. A robot was not even supposed to ponder such things. But EVE was no simple robot anymore. She was a sentient being, the first of a new species. A species that he, McCrow, had created. Unwittingly created, but nevertheless. How could he live with such a burden, with the responsibility towards this life?

He remembered how he jokingly had called Mark "Dr. Frankenstein". No, the truth was that _he_ was the Frankenstein. EVE was his creation. How could he arrogate the right to play God? He had not intended to, but it had happened. The burden was on his shoulders. He knew that if he failed to save EVE, the regret would consume him for the rest of his life. Tears of anger began to fill his eyes.

As he walked around in his quarters, his view fell on a photo on a shelf. It had been taken by Michelson during a training session, just a few weeks ago, though to McCrow it seemed like it had been a lifetime. The picture showed him hugging EVE while holding a boot with a plant inside, the very same boot that now sat on the shelf, still occupied by the plant. Both EVE and him were smiling.

No, giving up was not an option. The task might seem impossible to complete, but he would not sit there doing nothing. He wiped off his tears and shook his head. Then he stepped back to his desk to continue working.

* * *

The icon flashing on McCrow's computer screen that indicated the arrival of a message from Agricultural Survey appeared to the roboticist like the forth horseman of the Apocalypse. He barely dared opening the message, mortally afraid that it might bear bad news.

And to his dismay, his fear became reality. The message read that observations had shown a dramatically accelerating decay of Earth's vegetation. McCrow's eyes dashed furiously over the message, searching for numbers or dates. As he found what he was looking for, it felt to him like he had just received the fatal blow.

With the observation period now sufficiently long, calculations had turned out that the Earth's food supply would run out way sooner than anticipated. Too soon.

Too soon for EVE. There would not be enough time left to build a second prototype.

Calculations, McCrow thought, based on cold numbers, on cold equations. Wherever the cold equations were at work, there was no room for mercy. No room for hopes and regrets. The numbers showed that EVE had to begin her mission in two weeks, just barely after the ship's scheduled launch date. Each day of delay after that point would mean that people are going to starve.

The tears he had just dried off returned to his eyes. The numbers stared at him from his screen as if they were mocking him. They were laughing at him. They had won, he had lost. The cold equations had given EVE just two more weeks to live.

McCrow had worked with equations and formulae during all of his professional life. But now he was condemning them. He was cursing at the figures, as if they were something physical onto which he could unload all his sorrow and anger.

The words on the screen started to blur before McCrow's eyes. What were they going to do now? What _could_ they still do now? Well, continue working on the analysis software, of course. But was it not just delaying the inevitable? He knew that it was impossible to complete it in time. No, his mind knew. His heart just refused to know. Instead, his heart knew something else.

Starting there, the thought made its way to his mind that now was the time to tell EVE.

* * *

With still wet eyes, McCrow looked at the inactive probe who was hovering in the storage trailer. He reached for the keypad on her front and entered the command that would wake her up.

He looked into her blue flickering eyes as she came to life and answered her questioning look of foreboding by gently taking her fins into his hands.

"EVE, my little dear, will you take a walk with me?"

**Author's Notes**

The last chapters of this episode presented what can, according to the original meaning of the word, be called a "catastrophe". An unexpected and severe change for the worse.

The episode's title is a reference to an episode from the 1980s revival of the "Twilight Zone" series which had a similar topic, dooming a young girl due to unfortunate calculations.

If this was an 80s TV show, there would probably be a narrator now who'd explain in florid terms how it looks so bad and how we must all hope for a miracle. Well, it's not, so let's just close this one with a quiet "cross your fingers for EVE".


	8. Remembering How To Dance

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**  
Episode ****7**

**  
Author's Notes**

This is the last of five episodes in the "Prototype One" plotline dealing with the "birth" and early adventures of the first EVE prototype. It picks up the story right where episode 6 ended.

Warning: this episode **does** contain emotional rollercoasters. :)

Many thanks to co-author **Unreal.2K7** for contributing some chapters, for ideas, brainstorming and proofreading!

**  
"Remembering How To Dance"**

(Episode 5 in "Prototype One")

Outside the base, McCrow and EVE were looking at the sky. The roboticist was standing in the street, the sleek little probe hovering at his side. The sky was dusty and cloudy, like it was most of the time, and much like their hearts and spirits felt at this moment. Both of them did not say a word. All that needed to be said, had been said.

McCrow had informed EVE about everything, about the real problem with her scanner, about the food deadline, and about how she was the only being on the planet that could avert the disaster. Yet only for a terrible price. The most terrible price any living being could pay, and it was her who had to make the decision.

EVE felt a strange calmness. She closed her eyes for a moment, showing two horizontal lines on her display. It was odd. She would have expected, considering the dreadful news she had just received, to experience fear, anger, denial, defiance, anything but this calmness.

A little voice was calling inside of her. Not like the instructions from her directive core. It was the voice of her mind, of her conscience. It called to her that she had to make this sacrifice.

All the things that she had gone through had seemingly given her more than just sentience. They had given her a kind of serenity and acceptance that one would usually expect of aged and venerable people. Maybe she was feeling this calmness _because_ of the terrible news.

Yet she was not aged. She was still young, both physically and mentally. Another feeling became noticeable. It was the urge that every living being felt. It was the difference between all dead and living things: the will to stay alive.

The urge became stronger. It turned into a second voice that started calling to her, that wanted to make her fight to stay alive. EVE was torn back and forth between the two voices that became louder, trying to predominate each other. Suddenly she felt unsure if she would be able to cope with the enormous responsibility that had been laden onto her.

She decided that she would need a little time to think, a little time to come to terms with her feelings. She decided that to do so, she needed to be alone.

EVE turned around and looked at McCrow. She approached him, touched his arm and said _"Think. Alone."_

McCrow understood what she meant, even without the need to check his datapad for EVE's message. He nodded, released her hand and watched her as she darted upwards, into the dark night sky, and disappeared in the clouds.

McCrow stood there for a while, alone, pondering. A small gap appeared in the layer of clouds through which the stars could be seen. He knew that this captivating sight would not last for long, so he took it in as good as he could. He watched the stars, the only thing that gave him a little consolation in his sorrow.

As the clouds closed again, obstructing the stars, he turned towards the base entrace. Willing to continue his work, even if it was a hopeless task, he stepped inside.

He was not going to let EVE down. Not again.

* * *

EVE was floating, slowly and quietly, high above the streets and buildings of Los Angeles. She was deep in thoughts, and her eyes mirrored the struggle between the two voices inside of her. If only she had told McCrow what really had happened in that trailer, then maybe everything would have turned out differently.

But it was too late now for ifs and whens. Now she was... crippled. Unable to perform her duty. Her duty. Why did she bother at all about her duty? She was _alive_. Her eyes switched to an angry shape. Why should she have to sacrifice herself?

Looking down, she spotted the hordes of WALL-E robots, collecting trash like busy bees. They too were performing their duty. But that was different, they were not alive like she was. Why should she sacrifice herself for mindless trash compactors?

EVE watched a flock of birds flying past her some distance away. Those birds, they also were not alive. Not in her sense. But they were _creatures_. Wouldn't they be worth saving? And even more... the humans. They _were_ alive, just like she was. And there were so many of them. So many. Her eyes flickered back to sadness. _The needs of the many..._

Something odd down in the streets caught EVE's attention. She was unsure, but she believed she had spotted a pair of treads that peeked out from underneath a heap of garbage. She circled around and descended over the place. Yes, indeed, those were triangular treads. Without really understanding why she bothered at all, she descended further to investigate.

As she reached the street level, she discovered a WALL-E unit half-buried in the trash. Only its treads were peeking out. Poor robot, she thought. He must have gotten under a trashslide. She looked around, wondering why there were no other trash compactors nearby. She knew that the robots usually worked together, to be able to help each other, in case something like this here happened. _Helping each other..._

Suddenly she felt compassion. Whatever the reason was for his being all alone, he needed help, even if he was just a mindless trash compactor. EVE started digging him out, carefully, one piece of garbage at a time, so as not to cause any further slide that might have completely overwhelmed him.

After she had removed enough garbage, EVE grabbed the robot by his treads and gently pulled him out. She turned him around and put him down on his wheels, then inspected him from all sides. All in all, he looked quite okay, but one of his wheels was broken, and he clearly was out of power. After being caught under the trash, he had probably been unable to free himself or use his solar panels, and his battery would eventually have run out. Her feeling of compassion increased, quite visible in her eye display. She wondered what kind of death struggle the little guy must have gone through, alive or not. She shuddered, vividly remembering her own experiences. And who was to say this robot _wasn't_ alive? Maybe...

Compassion was replaced by resolution. She was going to help this poor creature. If she was not willing to be reset, if she was not going to be able to help the humans, she was at least going to make a difference and help this one little trash compactor. _The needs of the few..._

Gliding upwards into the air, EVE started looking around if she could find a replacement for his broken wheel. She was going to make sure that the robot would again be able to perform his duty, even if she herself was not. She spotted a WALL-E control trailer, and despite the bad memories it triggered, she hovered down towards it, hoping that it might hold some spare parts.

She was lucky, and a few minutes later, she returned to the inactive robot with a fresh wheel. Now to replace it. She studied his design as she cautiously loosened a few screws and removed the tread belt. There, the wheel was free. She removed it and put in the new one. After tightening the screws and replacing the belt, she contently regarded her work. The new wheel should do nicely, and if any other WALL-E unit might need some repair later, she now knew how to do it.

Then she pondered. The robot needed power, but the sun had already set, so his solar panels would not work. But she knew there was another way.

EVE opened the robot's front panel, exposing his battery terminals, and placed one of her fins against each plug. As her energy began to flow into his battery, the display on the robot's front lit up and confirmed that the battery was accepting the charge. Her eye display switched from contentment to happiness. She was still able to perform her duty! Maybe not the duty she had initially been built for, but she was able to at least save this trash robot. _The needs of a single robot..._

A little while later an appreciative chime from the robot's chest announced that the battery was full. EVE retracted her arms and watched as the WALL-E unit came to life, raised his head, adjusted his arms and wheels, and looked around. EVE's eyes flickered happily as the robot looked at her. Even though the chance was slim, she still hoped that he might be more than just a trash compactor, like she herself was more than just a plant-seeking probe. But he did not show any reaction towards her, instead turned around and started wheeling towards the nearest heap of trash, the one that he had been buried under not ten minutes ago. EVE sighed in disappointment. Anyway, she was going to do this little guy one last favor.

She hovered over him, grabbed him and lifted him up in the air, climbing higher until she spotted a group of robots that was working in a nearby area. She darted towards that place, the confused WALL-E gripped firmly between her fins. Then she put him down and looked at him with a warm smile. She pointed her fin towards the other WALL-Es. _"Home. Friends."_ she said.

She doubted that the trash compactor had understood her, but before he could turn around to wheel away again, she quickly rested her head against his to bid him farewell. Momentarily, a little spark spanned between her white plastic shell and his grey metallic framework. Then she let him go, and as she flew upwards, she watched him continue to perform his duty, collecting trash. At least now he was not alone anymore.

Then she was back, hovering above the streets, looking down thoughtfully at the robots. It was her accomplishment that one of them was able to perform his duty again. More than that, she had saved his life, even if it was just a primitive one. She had helped him. Suddenly, she felt an emotion that was completely new to her. She felt _proud_. She liked the feeling of satisfaction to have helped somebody, even if she had gotten nothing in return. It felt very good, and for the first time, she felt _really alive_.

All those robots down there were doing the same. They were working to help the humans get out of this trouble, and were not getting anything in return. And not only them. Many, many humans too were working for that goal. Her creator, her father, was working for that goal.

Her eyes showed understanding. It all was up to her. It was her who could make the difference. If she did not, all the work she saw down there, all the efforts the humans were making, would mean nothing. It was _her duty_ to make sure that did not happen. She had to save the humans. Or, at least, one human. With increasing determination, she came to a decision.

She knew what to do.

* * *

_Directive A-001: Collect Trash._

The little robot extended his grappler arms, lowered them and pulled another load of garbage into his chest. He did not wonder why he was now working together with a group of other robots, while the last thing his event log showed was that he had been working alone in a different part of the city. He just noticed, without paying further regard to it, that his time log showed a considerable gap of over 45 days.

_Directive A-002: Compact Trash._

The robot contracted, sending shudders through his every cog and gear. Something started forming deep down in his primitive programming. It was small, minute, like a little flame that could become a blazing fire, but could also be extinguished by the lightest draft of wind.

_Directive A-003: Eject Trash._

The robot released the contraction and let the cube of garbage tumble out of his chest. It was an image forming. A blurry, unrecognizable image of a white egg-shaped form with blue dots at the top. He could not tell what the significance of that shape might be, it just seemed to him, very remotely, that it _did_ bear some significance.

_Directive A-004: Stack Cube._

He seized the cube with his grapplers and started wheeling towards the nearest trash tower. Another image formed besides the white egg. It appeared like some distant echo of an idea that the white shape might have had something to do with the gap in his time log. It seemed as if the echo whispered that it was the shape that had brought him back. _Back to life._

_Collect trash._ He was about to pull the next load of trash into his chest as he noticed an object that bore a strange resemblance to the image inside him. Albeit it was not so much its form, but rather its color. It was a small, white, flat rectangular object with a light grey area on top and an engraved circle on the bottom.

_Compact trash._ Without understanding why, the robot hesitated and spared the object its fate of being crushed in his compaction chamber. Instead, he picked it up and put it into the utility box on his back. Maybe it could be of use later.

_Eject trash. Stack cube._

* * *

_Process aborted in phase 11.__ Specified network parameters too complex. Analysis failed._

McCrow whimpered in despair. They were making progress as they had hoped, but it still was not enough. Staring at the message on his computer console, he knew that they were running out time.. He sank back and stared blankly, his head feeling empty. But there was no time to take a break. He was willing to go on trying, even if it meant working until his final breath. So he pulled himself together and continued.

This was how EVE found him. She floated into the room, quietly, unnoticed, and hovered silently behind McCrow. She heard him sob a little, and warbled to him. _"Dave McCrow."_ Her eyes showed a mixture of sadness and compassion.

McCrow turned around and looked at the robot. "EVE... I'm doing all I can. I just... I just don't know if we'll make it in time. I fear we... No, we won't give up. _I_ won't give up. I'll..."

EVE's eyes flickered to consolation as she extended her arm and took McCrow's hand into her own. With her other arm she pointed at herself. _"Duty,"_ she said.

McCrow looked at her. A foreboding about what she meant was forming inside him and caused his eyes to fill with tears. _"Duty,"_ the white probe repeated.

McCrow slowly turned around to look at the computer console, which showed the message transmitted by EVE's communication system.

"_The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few__, or the needs of a single probe."_

He looked at EVE again, then he hugged her, wrapping his arms around her white frame, sobbing softly. "EVE, I... No, you can't do this. I won't let you do this."

EVE gently rested her head on his shoulder. Her eyes still showed consolation, mixed with determination. She knew what she had to do. _"No cry."_ she said. _"Duty."_ And then she added, _"Grant a wish?"_

McCrow raised his head and looked into her blue eyes, crying. He felt so much affection for this robot, irrational as it was. And EVE felt it too, deep down in her mind. She raised her fin and gently caressed over McCrow's face. "Anything you want, my little," he said.

"_Wish,"_ she repeated.

And the console read, _"Will you grant me the wish to dance with you through the skies, one last time?"_

* * *

_Directive A-00__8: Return to storage cubicle._

The little trash compactor robot did as he was instructed, for the third time. He wheeled towards the rear door of the nearby storage trailer, only to find it closed, like the two times before.

During all of the 63 days that he had worked alone, he had received this directive a while after the sun had set, when it was time to turn in for the night. The instruction to return to his cubicle would be repeated three times, but since there had been no trailer in the vicinity, he had ignored it and waited for the next one.

After the inexplicable 45 day gap in his logs, he was now once more close enough to a trailer to follow the return command, but when it had come in today, he had found that the trailer door was already closed, and his programming did not tell him how to open it from the outside.

_Directive A-00__9: Activate standby mode._

The robot also found himself unable to the follow the standby directive. His battery charge level indicated that it was by far not yet time to enter regenerative mode. And even though he tried, his hardware systems would not let him. So he had no choice but to ignore this directive as well and wait what was going to happen.

_Activate standby mode._ The robot presumed that the directive would be repeated three times, just like the return command. And indeed, after the next repetition, there was an instruction he had never gotten before.

_Directive A-099: __Sunrise re-activation event programmed. Shutting down directive core._

The robot wondered if he was expected to shut down now. But since he had no idea how to do that, he decided to just sit there for a while and see if his directive core would eventually give him further instructions. So he locked his wheels and settled down, looking around, trying to figure out what to do should there not be further directives.

This was really odd. He had never been without directives before. There had always been that ringing voice in his simple artificial mind that told him precisely what to do.

Now that voice was silent, and he started pondering.

What was he doing here? Why was there trash everywhere all around him? Why was he stacking it onto towers? What lay beyond those endless streets and buildings? He looked up to the cloudy sky. What might be beyond this eternal layer of clouds and dust, that gave him regular grievance in the form of sandstorms?

And then he noticed something in the sky. Something odd, like a color discrepancy. In addition to the uniform grey and black of the cloudy night sky, he saw two colorful trails, blue and white, which swirled around each other in interesting patterns.

Then it was over, and the misty trails dissolved again as quickly as they had appeared. The robot had never seen anything like this before, so his observation was automatically entered in his log and flagged as an "unusual event". But in addition to that, he noticed that the patterns that the trails had painted had something beautiful about them.

He was a little confused as to how he could understand the concept of "beauty". Then he remembered, deep down in his mind, the blurry white shape with the blue dots that kept reappearing in his thoughts. Maybe that shape had given him more than just his life back.

He unlocked his wheels and rolled off, trying to find more evidence as to what had happened to him, during and after these 45 days. Maybe he would be able to find that shape again, somewhere, some time.

* * *

"I'm ready, EVE, whenever you are," McCrow said in a low voice, approaching the white probe who was hovering silently outside the base trailers. EVE turned around and looked at her creator whom she held so dear.

_When I'm ready..._ Could there be such a thing as being ready for what was expected of her, what she was willing to do? In a few minutes, her neural network would be reset, essentially extinguishing her awareness, _herself_. She could still hear the voice that was telling her to fight.

But she ignored it. She decided to listen to the voice that urged her to help, to do her duty, to save others. Even if it meant to make the ultimate sacrifice. _Yes, she was ready._

She held out her arm, and McCrow gently took her hand, guiding her into the computer lab trailer.

"You'll need to lie down on the table, because during the reprogramming, your drive will shut down, and we don't want you to crash to the ground", McCrow said while he was connecting EVE's diagnostics port to the control computer.

EVE floated over the lab table and then tilted until she was hovering horizontally. Forcefield belts were activated that gently held her in place, not like restraints, but rather like soft rubber bands, intended to prevent her from rolling off the table.

McCrow informed EVE that he was now going to download the contents of her A.I. memory, the contents that held her acquired skills and part of her experiences.

_A few minutes left for me_, she thought. She recalled what she had experienced during her short but eventful life. She remembered everything. The first training flight when she had caught the falling plant, the colorful cube, the tickles from diagnostics and the little cleaning robot, the plant in the boot, giving sparks to McCrow, the tiny robotic rats she had been so afraid of. She showed a quick smile. Had she known back then...

Also the less pleasant experiences were burned into her mind. The hibernation. The fear she had felt when her scanner malfunctioned. The worry when she knew that McCrow had kept the truth about the scanner from her. She remembered it all, but it seemed all so distant now.

Then she recalled last night. Of course McCrow had granted her wish to have a last dance together. Her eyes flickered to happiness. She remembered it so vividly.

Before mounting his glider, McCrow had attached a strange canister to it. Noticing EVEs questioning look, he had told her she should not ask and that it was a surprise for her. Then they had launched into the air, gliding upwards smoothly, silently, like two white birds against the cloudy, black sky.

_T__hey were flying together, EVE dashing along at the glider's side, following whereever McCrow directed it. He even did not need to indicate maneuvers anymore, EVE just knew what he was going to do. At one point, she approached the glider and grabbed onto its rear end with her fins, giggling playfully at McCrow. Now there, no lazy hitchhiking, he laughed back and pulled the glider up, so that she slipped off. She let herself tumble down a distance before turning around to match up with McCrow again._

_Then __EVE stretched out her fins to spiral around the roboticist had waited for that moment and opened the canister, which turned out to be a blue fog dispenser. As they twisted and turned through the night sky, two graceful misty trails of blue and white appeared behind them, tracing spirals and circles._

_Now they were truly dancing__ together, the elegant white glider and the sleek little probe twirling around each other, merging, separating, painting the most beautiful pictures into the sky._

_In the middle of their__ flight, as they were floating high above the garbage heaps down in the streets of Los Angeles, EVE got a quick glimpse of a little trash compactor robot that seemed to look up at them in melancholy. But before she could dwell on it, McCrow directed his glider upwards. EVE followed, rising into a steep climb._

_Higher and higher they ascended, and as__ they broke through the final layer of clouds, the most spectacular starry sky EVE had ever seen was stretching above them. She looked at the myriads of little dots, her eyes frozen in awe. This was her destiny, to go to the stars, to explore other planets. This was what she had to do, what she wanted to do, even if she might not remember why she wanted it._

McCrow's heartbroken voice tore her out of her delightful reminiscence and back to reality.

"Download is complete, EVE."

The probe's eyes momentarily showed a trace of doubt as she noticed the message that was visible on the computer console.

_Ready to re__-implement A.I. core. Warning: this procedure is irreversible. Please confirm._

But the doubt quickly vanished again. EVE looked at McCrow, an indication of acceptance and finality in her eyes. _"Remember?"_ she asked. McCrow looked at his screen.

"_Will I remember how to dance?"_

Tears were filling McCrow's eyes as he held EVE's hand. "I don't know, EVE, I just don't know."

EVE nodded. With flickering eyes, she said, _"No worry."_ She was convinced, against all logic, that she would remember.

"_Ready,"_ she said.

McCrow held EVE's hand as tightly as he could. "EVE, you... You don't have to do this! We can find another solution, we..."

EVE turned her head and looked at the roboticist with gentle eyes. She raised her fin and caressed lightly over his cheek. _"Grateful"_, she warbled.

The console read, _"I will always be grateful for everything you did for me. But you must let me go now."_

Then, pressing his hand a little, she repeated, _"Ready."_

McCrow's heart was filled with infinite sorrow, but at the same time he was enormously proud of his little girl. He nodded and rested his head against her white plastic frame. "When this is all over, I promise I'll do anything I can to bring you back. Even if it takes the rest of my days," he whispered.

As he confirmed the console warning, he felt a gentle spark jump over from the probe's shell. He moved closer to EVE and took her other hand into his. He would stay with her until the last moment.

Messages dashed across the screen, confirming the reprogramming process.

EVE felt the strange calmness again as her consciousness started to dwindle away. Unlike in that trailer, when she had not known what was happening, she now was with McCrow, who was still holding her hands. Until the last moment, her will stayed strong, her confidence remained that something or her would survive.

Until the last moment she kept looking at McCrow, then her eye display flickered and shut off. She did not sense anymore that he released her hands as her fins and head retracted, her drive shut off and she lay silently on the lab table.

_Re-implementation complete._

And McCrow was the only living being left in the lab.

* * *

The roboticist gazed sadly at the lifeless probe for some time. It was strange how sometimes, to do the things that had to be done, you had to make a choice that you knew would take you down a road that you did not want to travel on.

Realization of what he just did and a deep regret rose up in him. His heart was being torn apart. He could not hold back his tears any longer. He felt like he had killed his girl. No, he _did_ kill his girl.

But then one word echoed through his mind. _"Duty."_ His creation, the daughter he never had, had stated her will to be sacrificed to save mankind. _Mankind..._ He was part of mankind. She wanted to save him, just as much, or maybe even more, than everybody else. She wanted to save the one person who had shown her so much affection, who had taught her all she knew, who had been worried when she was in danger.

Then he understood. He knew what to do, even if she was no longer present in that white plastic shell. He had to do what _she_ would have had him do. He stepped to the console and continued his work. For her wish to come true, _he_ had to make it come true.

* * *

Three weeks had passed.

After her reset, the EVE probe had undergone training again. It had progressed swiftly and efficiently, since McCrow had been able to preserve most of her skills and experiences, including everything she had learned about controlling her physical body. But still, as he had feared, the spirit and soul of the former EVE was gone. No more cheerful giggles or curious warbles. She was, in her sense, not _alive_ anymore.

But ultimately, they had been able to meet their deadline. The _Columba_ had been completed, and the probe had been ready in time.

The ship had taken the probe to the first of the fifteen planets where she was to search for plant life. It had unloaded her, and now she was hovering over the surface of this strange new world, a greenish sky stretching above her, about 3.500 light years away from the Earth.

_Directive __M-0-14: Proceed to next grid square._

Obediently the probe followed the instructions given by the directive that reverberated in her artificial mind. Her internal display indicated to which part of the surface she was to move next.

_Directive __M-0-18: Scan for vegetation._

The probe stopped and activated her blue flickering scanning beam. The red light that flared up on her front indicated that the scan had turned up no plant life. _Scan result negative_, the probe reported.

_Directive __M-0-22: Scan negative. Repeat M-0 loop._

As the probe continued her tour, a sweeping noise interrupted her. She turned around and noticed the transport ship depart towards its station in orbit around the planet, where it was to scan the astronomical neighborhood for anything unusual.

Observing the ascending vessel, she felt something like a distant reminiscence stir inside of her. As if she was witnessing something that she had liked to do herself but that she had forgotten. It was odd though, her directives' instructions were clear and they did not contain anything about flying for fun.

_Flying..._

_Proceed to next grid square._ The directive was repeated and the probe shook off the dreaminess that kept her from fulfilling her mission. She turned around to continue her way to the next grid square.

_Scan for vegetation._ The probe activated her beam, which once more showed no signs of plant life. _Repeat loop._ She noticed some dust that had been stirred up by the departing ship and was now settling down again. The dust formed streaks of differently colored particles which were swirling around each other, as if they were...

_Dancing..._

The probe felt another stir inside of her. Another distant memory flickered deep down in her mind that associated this pattern of twisting dust with something she used to do, used to like doing.

_Proceed to next grid square._ The probe shrugged off the disturbing thoughts for now. She had a directive to follow. Maybe, given time, she would understand what those memories meant.

Maybe, in time, she will remember how to dance.

* * *

"_If there is one thing that the history of evolution, be it organic or robotic, has taught us, it is that Life is not easily destroyed. Life struggles, Life finds the smallest gap to hide in, to survive. __Often it is not easy, sometimes it is painful. But Life always finds a way."_

THE END

**  
Author's ****and Co-Author's Notes**

This is of course not "The End" of Binary Uplift. This episode just concludes the mini-series about EVE's early adventures.

I hope you have enjoyed the rollercoaster of emotions that we tried to create, and had as much fun reading it as we had writing it.

On, and for those of you who'd like to burn us on a stake now for having this adorable creature reset so shortly after her emergence: do you really think we'd spend five episodes to create her only to have her vanish again right away? :) Notice her use of the word "life" in the meaning of "sentience".

Actually the EVE series was initially planned just as one or maybe two episodes, as a diversion after the technobabble stuff in ep. 2. While being written though, the story grew as ideas came, and it also changed considerably. The ending we had initially planned for it has been changed and "postponed" and will play a role in a future episode (a little hint: EVE has, unlike in the movie, no gluon gun yet).

If you have the chance to get the soundtrack to the movie "The Last Unicorn", you may want to listen to the song "Unicorns In The Sea" while reading the "flying for the last time" scene. Do it, it simply fits perfectly. :) Matching song to text: 0:00 – McCrow attaches the canister to the glider and they take off. 0:15 – They are flying together. 0:35 – The fog canister is opened. 0:48 – They are "truly dancing together". 1:06 – They break through the cloud layer. 1:25 – The reminiscence ends. 1:40 – EVE asks if "she'll remember how to dance".

The "needs of the many" quote is – of course – taken from Star Trek, as many of your surely recognized.

The closing quote is an adaption from Jurassic Park and gives a little indication how "our EVE" might come back to us.

A little outlook: There will be some "political thriller" style plotline about Forthright and the Operation Cleanup. We'll also dive into the past a little and tell about events that led to BnL's rise to power and the population situation at the point of the EVE story. Then there's some plot about the Axiom under its first captain, and some further robot characters (especially Auto). We have (of course) more stuff about EVE and McCrow. And there's the events set in motion by the transducer technology. Also a lot will happen after the "A113 stage" has been reached and the Earth is deserted. We'll see how WALL-E himself develops during that time.

Expect new episodes after a break (real-life work needs to be done too :) ). Stay tuned!


	9. Hide And Seek

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**  
Episode 8**

**  
Author's Notes**

After witnessing the early adventures of the first EVE prototype, we now turn our attention to the background of the events surrounding the "food crisis". Beginning a new plotline named "Shelby's Ark", we go back in time a few months and shine a light on how the problem was discovered, how to developed and how it played into the EVE story.

**  
"Hide And Seek"**

(Episode 1 in "Shelby's Ark")

A few months before the events surrounding the first EVE prototype, Bill Jennings was standing outside of his farmhouse, overlooking his widespread grain fields. The sun was about to set and cast a beautiful orange light over the scenery. Jennings liked watching sunsets; he found that they had something quiet and serene about them.

Actually the fields that Jennings was regarding were not really "his". He did not own them, but as an agriculturist employed by one of the numerous BnL farming subsidiaries, it was his job to tend to them and to the food that was growing on them.

For several decades now, ever since the drastic climate changes in the twenty-first century had made living in the countryside hard to impossible in most places, the majority of Earth's population had been living in cities. Most people were housed in the larger metroplexes, the rest in middle-sized cities and towns. There were still a few people left who preferred to live quietly and rurally, away from the bustling and often overcrowded places of activity, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to find a spot where this was still possible.

What was left of cultivatable farmland was now under government control, or rather under BnL's control, which at the time was one and the same thing.

Being an agriculturist did not have much in common with the profession of "farmer" in former times. Most processes, from planting seedlings, over watering and tending to them, to bringing in the harvest were automated or carried out by robots. Still, human supervision was necessary, if only to call in service workers if one of the machines or robots broke down.

So Jennings and his co-worker Paul Daley felt that they did not have the worst of all imaginable jobs, although it had a tendency to be quite boring most of the time.

Recently though, when looking over the grain fields Jennings felt a little concern, which was something that he was not used to. For some reason, the plants' growth and crop efficiency had been sub-par for several weeks now, and the farmers were wondering if it was them who were doing anything wrong. All parameters of the fields were within limits though. Sunshine and shade periods, humidity levels, fertilization, pest control, all in the green.

Jennings took out his wireless datapad and instructed a robot to do another quick visual survey of the fields. Actually he had already done so this morning, but he wanted to make sure that his observations were correct before he delivered his report to his superiors.

Half an hour later, the survey was complete, and as Jennings was finalizing his report, Daley stepped out of the house and joined his colleague.

"Hey Bill, dinner's almost ready. How's it looking?"

"Hmm," Jennings replied. "I'd really like to know what's going on here. Growth is still going slightly downhill, that's totally unusual for this time of season. Look at all the sun and rain we had in the last weeks, the wheat should be sprouting like hell."

"Maybe you just lost your green thumb. I can call in a searchbot to help you recover it if you like," Daley joked, receiving a grim look from his colleague in return, which then turned into a half-hearted grin.

"Yeah right. I guess I shouldn't worry so much. It's surely just a temporal thing. I'll file the report and then we can have dinner."

"That's the spirit. Remember, we're just the farmers here. It's not our job to figure out those problems, let the guys at the Survey do that. Alright then, you'll find me at the table when you're done," Daley said and returned to the house. Jennings completed his report and transmitted it to the Agricultural Survey institute, a little less worried than before, and followed his colleague inside.

* * *

Kimberly Wells nodded contently as she finished typing the last paragraph of her script and put down the datapad. Checking the clock in her office in Miami's _BnL Network News_ central broadcasting station, she found that she still had some time before she had to present the 7 p.m. news.

Wells was a respected newscaster and journalist for BNN, and the fact that she had gotten this assignment to do a thorough documentary about the crisis in the twenty-first century, including BnL's subsequent rise to power, meant that she was finally about to enter the "major league" of BNN journalists. It was about time, she pondered, after all those petty reports she had had to do.

It was a huge opportunity, and she intended not to waste it, so she was trying to put as much effort into this documentary as she possibly could. She had done a fair amount of historical research and also interviewed numerous people. Being quite satisfied with the draft of her script, she picked up her datapad to start the first review right away.

It all had started around the year of 2010. Earth's population counted roughly 6.5 billion people at the time, and despite having been aware of the consequences for quite a while, those in charge had been either too negligent or too focused on their personal profit to change the situation. So they kept polluting their environment and atmosphere until nature struck back.

It did so in form of a phase of severe solar flares and coronal mass ejections that started in September 2012. Those cosmic events emanating from the Sun struck the Earth whose ozone layer was seriously weakened due to atmospheric pollution, and whose magnetic field, which underwent periodic changes in intensity, up to complete reversals every quarter million years, had reached a dangerous all-time low in terms of modern human history. All that together triggered, besides massive blackouts due to damaged electronic systems, a period of heightened solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface.

Mankind was caught by this development not completely unprepared, but like so often when scientists did not fully comprehend what was going on, the possible effects on humans were underestimated.

Cases of short- and middle-term fatalities due to radiation poisoning were negligible. But there was another effect that was not immediately observable: widespread and progressing sterility.

It took a while for the decline in birth rates to stand out of the usual statistical noise. But when it eventually became obvious, so did its connection to the increased solar radiation. Scientists all around the world picked up their work immediately, since it became clear that, should the situation progress as expected, and should they not find a solution quickly, the planet would be mostly depopulated in about a hundred years.

Times became increasingly problematic. With fewer and fewer children born, there were more and more workplaces without successor when the aging people could not fulfill their duties anymore. But mankind never gave up, and it was literally in the last second when…

A warning chime sounded to alert Wells to the time. Looking at the clock she put down her datapad. She had to go and prepare herself for the news show that she was hosting, so work on the documentary had to wait until afterwards. As she left her office, she wondered if the trash problem was already the peak of the current crisis or whether there were even worse times ahead.

* * *

The elevator in the Agricultural Survey Institute building came to a halt, and with the pleasant sound of a soft bell, the doors opened to let Alan Derring enter the cabin. He stepped in and pressed a button that would take him to the sixteenth floor where the "map room" was located.

Derring was the head of the Analytics and Statistics department. Its task was to evaluate food requirement and production and to compose planting and harvesting figures for all farms on the American continent for the executive departments, which in turn carried out the coordination and supervision.

Just like the profession of "farmer" had thoroughly changed from its original meaning, so had that of a "farm". It was no longer a family residence with maybe a few acres of farming soil, but a widespread area of land, spanning over hundreds to thousands of square kilometers and being speckled with as many dwellings for machinery, robots, tools and maintenance workers.

Of course, given the general degradation of the climatic situation, the number of farms had gone down in a similar way as their sizes had gone up. There were a few hundred of those huge food production complexes now, and all of them were under government control. Most of the food that was required by the many inhabitants of metroplexes, cities and towns alike was grown there.

As the elevator reached its destination floor, Derring walked out and along a hallway. Before entering the map room, he looked out of a window that was located in the opposite wall. He always enjoyed the amazing view over the streets and buildings of the governmental district. The institute was located in the city of Shelbington, formerly known as Washington D.C., and at this time of day it was particularly bustling with activity.

Derring opened the door and entered the room. Inside he found two co-workers from his department brooding over the information that was shown on the plethora of huge display screens along the walls and hanging from the ceiling. This place really did deserve the term "map room", even if it was not the "prepare for war" paper maps one might have expected.

"Hi Alan!" Derring was greeted by Rick Talon, one of his colleagues. "Sorry to disturb you with this, but Chris and me have been trying to figure this out for some days now, and we can't seem to find an explanation. We have the suspicion that something bigger might be at work here. Look at this."

He pointed at a group of maps that showed the reported and projected food production of all farms under their supervision. Many of the icons which were supposed to be showing a light or dark green color were currently flashing yellow or red, which meant that the local farm workers had reported a stagnating or even declining productivity.

Derring knew that there were many possible reasons for this, from local bad weather periods over outbreaks of soil pests to unfavorably chosen fertilization parameters. But each of those reasons was usually accompanied by a specific pattern in which the effect manifested itself, and the picture that the overview map currently showed was something he had never seen before.

"Good lords, they're spread all over the map. Some kind of rodent epidemic?"

"No, that can't be it. Many of the farmers also pondered it might be rodents, and they performed regular pest control sweeps. They turned up nothing," Chris Lance interjected. "There's also no pattern to it that might indicate a weather phenomenon. And it's definitely not statistical either. Given the past sun and rain periods, harvest output should be much higher."

"I agree," Derring said. "How long has this been progressing?"

"It's been going slowly but continuously downhill for about two weeks now. The decline reports arrived in no explicable order, there was no spatial or temporal pattern associated with any adverse effect that we know of."

Derring pondered for a moment, then made a quick decision. "Gather our specialists, we need to check this out ourselves on-site. We'll start with the sector of the farm from where the latest report came in. Maybe we can still find traces there of whatever is happening."

Lance typed a command into his datapad, and the map screen zoomed in on one of the farms, showing the names "Bill Jennings" and "Paul Daley" as the responsible farmers. This was to be the first target for their investigation.

* * *

A few city blocks away from the Survey Institute, quite in the center of the governmental district, Richard Wells disembarked the fast-transit train that had taken him from his private residence to the Buy'n'Large Head Office where he was working as the CEO's Chief Secretary. While this job title might have sounded like he was just a simple copy typist, he was in fact the head of Forthright's personal advisors and thus the second most powerful person in the country. Accordingly, he was greeted with respect whenever he passed by somebody on his way from the train station to the admission point of the Head Office's premises.

In former times, when there was a President, the Senate and constituents instead of a CEO, a Board of Management and shareholders, Wells would probably have been something like the Vice President. But that had been before the unification of commerce and politics. A lot of things had changed since then. Many for the better, some for the worse.

On his way to the large double doors that marked the entrance to the main building, Wells had to pass the usual security measures, in this case showing an access card and having a retinal scan taken. Of course he was known to every single employee, security personnel and cleaning worker in the Office, but there was still the danger of impersonation. It would not have been the first time that some Wells look-alike had gotten into the building and caused quite some trouble before being discovered.

Walking along the corridors towards an elevator door, Wells took out a datapad to check up on today's schedule. Although he had a personal secretary who took care of his appointments, he liked to keep track of things himself.

Among other things, he was to meet with Alex Mendez from the CASE institute, who apparently had some interesting news to report in terms of the "extraterrestrial vegetation" project they were conducting. Wells could not recall precisely what it was, but he remembered that Mendez had been quite excited about it. So excited that he could barely get his point across in his voice message, at least not in a way so that others could reliably understand it. But it must have had something to do with having a breakfast, odd as it might sound, since he recalled Mendez talking about white eggs.

Then, after a visit to some social institution, he needed to prepare a TV speech for Forthright. While he quite liked doing the latter, he also was not at all against the former. Unlike several other people in the Office, first and foremost his boss, he held the opinion that the world could not work just on commerce alone.

Wells entered the antechamber to his office and greeted his secretary. "Good morning, Mrs. Johnson."

"Hello, Mr. Wells! No urgent events so far, I wish you a good day!"

She handed him the usual correspondence and some selected newspapers with potentially interesting stories. As Wells took the papers, his view rested on the TV screen that was propped against a wall. It showed an installment of the "BNN Head-On" talkshow, in which the host Kimberly Wells presented discussions, sometimes quite heated ones, between representatives of different opinions. A quick smile flickered over Well's face as he watched the host try her best to calm down the emotions without becoming enraged herself.

Wells then thanked his secretary and walked into his office. Sitting down at his desk, he started pondering about the speech for his boss. It was probably going to be another one of those "praise-and-glory to the consumism" sermons that had been peoples' constant companion for some decades now. He was of course going to write it, but also to make sure to add his personal note to it.

Yes, _so far_, Wells' day was quite good.

* * *

Kimberly Wells was having quite some trouble to interrupt the flow of words that emanated from her two studio guests who were vividly discussing their quite opposite viewpoints, barely paying attention to the talkshow's host anymore, but finally she managed by decidedly increasing her voice's level of loudness.

"Thank you, thank you gentlemen! I'm sure our viewers would love to hear more of your truly interesting opinions, but unfortunately our time is up." She waited for a second until the two opponents actually became quiet, then she continued towards the camera.

"So, that's our show for this morning! I would like to thank all our viewers out there for watching our lovely debate, this amazing sparring of words and ideals. I would also like to thank our esteemed guests for both of their amazing views on the subject of "Would we still be able to live today without robots doing our work?". Please join us again tomorrow for another exchange of opinion blows about "The trash crisis – who's responsible?". Until then, have a beautiful day!"

Smiling into the camera, Kim waited until she heard the director call over the studio PA system. "Okay, we're off the air. Good job, Kim!"

"Thanks," she replied, and throwing a smirking glance at her guests, she added, "Always good to see that this world is still not out of wranglers."

While the TV crew began packing up the technical equipment, Kim left the studio and headed for her office. Considering that the deadline for her twenty-first century documentary drew closer, she intended to continue work on the review before it was time for the next news show.

"Hey George, any last minute blowoff for the next show?" she asked as she passed by the office of one of the station's editors. Apparently there was none, so she walked on and soon reached her room. She settled on a couch with a datapad in her hands and pulled up the location where she had stopped reviewing before.

All through the sterility crisis, mankind had never given up hope and work, but it had taken several decades before a solution had been found. It was literally in the last second when the research department of one of the foremost pharmaceutical corporations, supported by a group of high-energy physicists, came up with a combination of an inoculation and some technical means to shield off a good deal of the radiation from humans.

Kim still had to do some research in terms of the latter part, but concerning the pharma corporate her notes were mostly complete. Its name was "BioCorp", and the research department was called "BioCorp National Laboratories".

Of course, their achievement was a huge breakthrough and the ultimate prestige boost for BioCorp. Over night, every person in the whole world knew their name, and they suddenly were not just famous, but the responsibility to save mankind had been laden onto their shoulders.

Conversely, the step from a scientific discovery to worldwide mass production and distribution could not be taken over night. BioCorp needed to seriously expand their business to be able to produce the required amounts of inoculant and shielding devices. Supported by governments all around the globe, they acquired other pharma and physics corporations, and in a little while BioCorp had established a monopoly position in their field of business.

Naturally, nobody objected to that, considering that humankind's fate was at stake. When finally the distribution of the sterility countermeasures had taken hold and birth rates slowly started rising again, the Earth's population had already been reduced to about _200 million_ people, mostly living in cities due to climatic conditions. One could indeed speak of a last second save there, Kim pondered.

Once the crisis was under control and population figures were stable, abolishing the need for inoculant mass production, BioCorp started expanding their business into other fields of commerce. Backed by the inconceivable amount of capital they had accumulated, they could virtually _buy_ out any firm they wanted, and over the course of a few years they became truly _large_. Not that they had not already been large before.

Then they decided, first and foremost to express that they were no longer just a pharmaceutical firm, to change their name. Honoring their research department, which had been the seed of all of their success, they decided to keep the Laboratories' initials and were from that day on known as _Buy-n-Large_.

And thus started the story of success of the company that strived to encompass all commerce around the globe. It actually seemed that there was not much that could stop them on their way to achieve that goal. And indeed there was not. By the end of the twenty-first century, nearly all firms on the globe had become BnL subsidiaries.

That had been the point when BnL was large and strong enough to once more come to the rescue when another crisis arose, shortly before the new century began. Severe mismanagement in several cities had led to...

"Hmph!" Kim complained as a call on the intercom interrupted her. If one could only concentrate on one thing for longer than ten minutes in this TV station! She accepted the call from the editor whose office she had passed by just before. Apparently, there now _had_ been some breaking news-worthy development after all, at least judging by the pressingness with which the editor urged Kim to meet him. So she put down the datapad and postponed completion of her review once more.

Too bad, she thought, now that things were really getting interesting. But, she figured then, to give the last part a meaningful roundup, she needed to conduct a few additional interviews at the BnL Head Office anyway.

* * *

"Now there, little guy. Too bad you can't just tell me what's wrong."

Thomas West was kneeling on the ground between two rows of wheat plants, inspecting a little seedling from all sides. He was a botanist and biochemist, employed by the Agricultural Survey, and a member of Alan Derring's investigation team.

They had already examined three farms, namely those that had reported the worst plant growth and output figures. At each farm they had taken soil and water samples for analysis and had talked with the responsible farmers. So far, no real evidence as to what might have been causing the problems had been found.

Also the fourth farm presented itself as a mystery. While Derring and Talon were checking up on the logs that the surveillance systems in the farmhouse had recorded, West and a few of his colleagues were skimming through the actual farm area, looking for anything unusual there.

The botanist opened his suitcase-sized mobile biolab and inserted an amount of soil into a small apparatus, then scraped a little drop of water off a leaf and let it drip into a test tube. Waiting for the analysis result, he pondered.

A few years ago, a quite similar incident of reduced plant growth had occurred among several farms, which had turned out to have been caused by a certain soil parasite. They had needed some time to isolate and identify it, and some more to come up with a countermeasure. But once the parasite had been eliminated, growth had quickly returned to normal. Maybe something similar was at work here. It would explain the small anomaly in soil composition that he had discovered during the other three examinations. He was quite curious if...

The soil analysis apparatus sounded a chime, and West looked at the display screen. Yes, indeed, also here on this farm there was a little discrepancy in amount of several sulfur and nitrogen compounds in the ground with the values that were considered standard.

Those figures could not be the immediate reason for the growth problems, but they indicated that something odd had to be at work here.

A second chime announced that also the water analysis was completed. It showed some similarly off figures for several compounds. Nothing serious at all, the water was still perfectly healthy for both plants and humans, but still.

Another thought besides the parasite occured to West. He wondered if there might be something wrong with the Desalinators, or at least those responsible for the farms in question.

Ever since the progressing climate changes in the last century had reduced rain periods all over the country to maybe two times per year, artificial irrigation had become necessary. In this context, it had actually become an advantage that the farming areas were no longer scattered but rather concentrated.

A good number of huge sea water desalination plants, called Desalinators, had been constructed that now provided most of the population's and agriculture's water requirement. Luckily, with the seriously reduced population and the astronomical supply in the oceans, there was no danger of running out of water. But if there was something wrong with the Desalinators, on a biological or chemical level, that could lead to a real problem. It was conceivable that what they were witnessing at the moment was the first indication of such a problem.

West decided to confer with his colleagues who were examining the soil a few hundred meters away from his position, and if they agreed, to report their idea to Derring. It might be best to pay the Desalinator that provided the water for this farm a checkup visit. Maybe they could find a lead there in their game of hide-and-seek with the reason for all the trouble.

* * *

The hovercar that was taking Kimberly Wells and her camera team to their interview location was gliding through the suburbs of the once-angelic city of Los Angeles. Looking at the garbage-infested streets, Kim wrinkled her nose. She had done interviews in trashy cities before, but this had to be as bad as it could possibly get.

"Yikes. What in heaven could be the reason for CASE to set up an outpost base _here_?" Kim wondered.

Her camera operator, who was also driving the car, replied, "I was told that they're doing some field training for a new kind of robot A.I. and need a, as they put it, realistic environment. Don't know though if they're expecting to find trashed landscapes on other planets or something."

"Right, we'll see," Kim said. She was a little annoyed that she had gotten this assignment to do a follow-up documentary for the one she had done a few weeks ago. It was about the latest project that the CASE Institute was conducting: finding planets that might be suitable for long-term terraforming. Actually she would have preferred to work on the script for her BnL feature, but apparently the people she needed to talk with at the Head Office were too busy at the moment.

"Don't worry, we'll be there shortly. And from what I've heard, they're doing some quite interesting stuff there," the cameraman said.

"I hope so, then this trip to the depths of Trash Planet will at least not have been for nothing."

A few minutes later, as they turned around a street corner, Kim's view fell onto the remarkable assembly of huge mobile, trailer-like structures that made up the CASE base. "Okay, this is not bad. I was rather expecting a few shacks, but this _is_ worth the term 'outpost base'."

As they pulled closer, Kim spotted the lead roboticist of the project, Dave McCrow, with whom she had done interviews before, and one of his colleagues. They were standing just outside what appeared to be the base's main entrance.

"...yeah Mike, you definitely got a point there. I'd never have imagined that our genetic algorithms could lead to such a result," McCrow said to James Michelson. Then, as he noticed the group of journalists approaching, he added, "Oh hello, Mrs. Wells, right?"

"Yes, Kimberly Wells, BnL Network News. I hope our arrival has been announced?"

"It has. Your station informed me that you'd like to do some more interviews about our project? Well I think you've come at the right time," McCrow said with a smirk towards his colleague.

It was at this point that Kim noticed McCrow's quite unusual footwear, which consisted of just one formal shoe and socks covering the other foot. McCrow detected the slightly wrinkled forehead and the questioning look on Kim's face. "Don't ask, it's a long story," he said, forgetting momentarily that he was talking to a journalist.

"Oh that's good, I like long stories!" Kim promptly replied with a grin.

McCrow chuckled. "Of course you do. This is James Michelson, a fellow roboticist. The two of us are responsible for development and training of the first EVE prototype. Well, mostly I am, but Jim here is doing his best to keep up with me."

"I see," Kim replied with a grin. "So this EVE, is that the new breakfast service robot that you're building?"

McCrow looked puzzled. "Breakfast? Where did you get that from?"

"Well, our station was told that you're constructing some robot that has something to do with breakfast eggs? I'm sorry, the information given by your boss was a little... incoherent, to say the least."

McCrow laughed. "Yes, that's Alex forya. Once he gets excited, he forgets most of the words required to make sentences meaningful. No, it has nothing to do with breakfast, though the 'egg' part holds some truth. 'EVE' is short for 'Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator'. And before you get any ideas: no, it was not _me_ who came up with that term."

Michelson continued, explaining what the EVE probe's task was and what they were doing at the moment.

Kim was listening with great interest. "So you are training this A.I. kind of like, well, a pet animal?"

"Yes, for the most part. But once we're finished, she'll be much more than that," McCrow said.

"'She'? But it's still just a robot, isn't it?"

"Basically she is. But then again, she's not. She something very special, and I know what I'm talking about. I've constructed and trained quite some robots during my time."

"Hmm. What is it then that makes 'her' so special?" Kim wondered.

McCrow smiled a little as he heard a humming noise and a short warbling sound from inside the base. "You might as well ask her yourself."

The base door opened and the white probe robot came hovering out. She looked briefly over the group of guests, then she floated towards McCrow. _"Plant?"_ she warbled.

"Yep, EVE, no worries, I've taken good care of it. After all it cost me a good pair of boots."

The probe's eye display flickered to a happy smile and she emitted a little chuckling sound.

Kim was watching the scene in captivation. Although she preferred to assume that this was rather a trick or an illusion, it actually did seem as if... "Did this... did this robot just... _laugh_?"

A headline was forming in her mind. _"Robot Expresses First Emotion: Happiness!"_

* * *

Thomas West was sitting in the rear seat of the AD-M glider while Rick Talon was piloting the sleek and elegant gravitic aircraft. They were dashing over the countryside, towards the ocean shore, the local Desalinator platform being their destination.

Times of crises had at least that one advantage, West pondered grimly. Under normal circumstances, regular people like him rarely got the opportunity to travel in an AD-M. The botanist could not really enjoy the ride though; there was too much was on his mind right now.

He looked down and watched the landscape rush past. Soon they were going to reach the shore, which, aside from the large cities, showed best what mankind had done wrong during the last decades. There was a reason that the desalination plants were not located on the mainland, but had been constructed on platforms that in former times mostly had been used as oil drilling stations. From there, huge pipelines transported the salt-free water upcountry, to wherever it was needed.

As the coastline came into view, so did another line: One of filthy and trash-ravaged water.

Excessive output of garbage had been a problem not only on the land, but sooner or later considerable amounts of it also got into the oceans. And eventually, it came back to the shores, washed up by the ever-changing currents.

Therefore the waters close to the shore suffered from severe pollution problems, and it was unfeasible to have desalination plants on the land pump it down from there. It was necessary to go further offshore, and the disused oil drilling platforms had come in quite handy for that. Reusing them had been considerably less expensive than constructing new ones, although some of them were quite run-down and barely safe to continue operating.

As the AD-M glider darted out over the water and the huge platform came into view, West pondered that the Desalinator they were headed for was probably one of the run-down type. He was quite curious about what they might find there.

Their destination quickly came closer, and soon the glider settled down on the large airfield on the platform's deck.

* * *

McCrow smiled. "Yes, indeed she laughed. Despite it's merely an artificial intelligence up there in her processors, she's quite versed at displaying emotions. The engineers that designed her eye display made sure of that."

EVE giggled again and nodded, then turned towards the journalist. _"Name?"_ she inquired.

Kim was quite perplexed as she looked back at the white hovering robot. "Uhm.. Kimberly Wells, BnL Network News."

EVE's eyes momentarily took on a puzzled shape, then she repeated, _"Kimberly Wells Bee Ann Elle Network News."_ She turned around, quickly looked at McCrow, and then turned back towards Kim. _"Strange name?"_ she warbled curiously.

Now it was Kim's turn to giggle. "Nono, the name is Kimberly Wells. I work for the Buy-n-Large Network News."

With an understanding expression in her eyes, EVE nodded and said, _"Kimberly Wells. Directive: Network News."_

"EVE, Miss Wells here is a journalist and would like to do an interview with us. She's interested in the things we do here and wants to ask some questions. Would you like that?" McCrow asked the probe.

The robot nodded enthusiastically and uttered an appreciative _"Of course"_.

"Is the robot actually analyzing and understanding our sentences? The reactions are not simple programmed responses to preset commands?" Kim asked, still a little skeptical.

McCrow just grinned and waited for EVE to respond in his place. _"Analyze and understand,"_ the white probe warbled, nodding.

"Very impressive," Kim said. "I think I'll have some more questions now than initially planned."

* * *

"Hmm, yes. Looks like it's all in the green there. Could I please also see the log lists of your outbound water chemical analyses? Don't worry, I'm not at all saying that you're neglecting your responsibility here, I'd just like to double-check."

Thomas West and Rick Talon had been shown to the desalination plant's control room by Ray Stoneworth, the platform's foreman, and were assembled around a computer console screen.

"Yes, sure," Stoneworth replied, a little annoyed about the unexpected inspection, but he knew that the two biochemists were merely doing their job. He typed a command into the computer which thereupon displayed a list of analysis results.

"You see, the processed water is automatically and thoroughly analyzed every two hours, and any discrepancy from the nominal values would trigger an alarm that you just cannot overhear. And in addition, we check the logs twice per day in case anything should slip through."

"Yes, I see," West replied, sounding distinctly disappointed, which Stoneworth seemed to have noticed.

"What's wrong? Were you actually _hoping_ to find any anomalies?" the foreman asked.

"In fact, I would have preferred so, yeah. At least we'd have had a possible explanation then for the plant growth problems on the farms."

Stoneworth pricked his ears at those words. "Plant growth problem? Odd that you should say this. One of my co-workers recently told me about some similar things here."

West furrowed his brow and a dark shadow crossed his face. "What? Really? What did he tell you?"

"Well, you know, we have this underwater observation lounge here that is located down on seafloor level. I don't really know what purpose it's supposed to serve, or has ever served, but since it's there, we like spending time down there and watching the ocean life. Especially Ricky who has a real neck for water plants. He spends quite a portion of his free time down there, watching the seaweed. And recently he told me that he noticed the seaweed not growing as well as it used to."

Thoughts were racing through West's head. Of course it could be just coincidence, but if there was some mechanism at work that caused the reduction in plant growth both on the farms and down there, on the ocean floor...

He exchanged a quick glance with his biochemist colleague who was obviously thinking along the same lines. They needed to talk to this hobby botanist, as quickly as possible.

* * *

In the course of her interview with McCrow, Kimberly Wells' state of being impressed had increased steadily. They had moved to McCrow's office, after a much needed change of footwear, and the roboticist had given her a detailed overview of EVE's physical properties, of her intended mission and of how the scientists were going about training her complex neural network A.I.

"Thank you very much, Mr. McCrow, for this fascinating insight into your work here." She pointed to a shelf as she added, "I especially found the episode with that boot most remarkable. I've never heard before that a robot A.I. could develop such distinct cognitive skills, but what I've witnessed myself just before very much proves it is possible. Oh, might it also be possible to ask EVE a few questions directly?"

McCrow pondered for a moment, then replied, "Sure, why not. Please be a little careful though as not to influence her training."

The journalist nodded and thanked the roboticist again as he left the office to look for the probe. Shortly after, the robot floated in and regarded Kim with curious eyes.

"Okay, EVE, would you like to answer a few questions for me?" Kim asked in a friendly tone.

_"Game?"_ the probe replied inquiringly.

Kim smiled. "Yes, it's kind of like a question-and-answer game. Would you like that?"

The probe's eyes took on a playful expression. _"Like games!"_ she warbled, and then pondered for a moment. There was a game that she liked even more than "question-and-answer", and she figured that it was her turn to first choose one. _"Find me first!"_ she giggled, waited for a moment with her view fixed on Kim, and then she turned around and floated out of the room.

Kim was sitting in her chair with a quite perplexed expression on her face. This was actually the first time that an interview partner had prompted her to do a game of hide-and-seek before agreeing to answer questions. Whatever, she thought with a grin. If she had a playful partner, why not being a little playful herself.

She got up, put her recording equipment on a table and followed the robot.

* * *

The EVE probe hovered quickly along a corridor, looking for a place to hide. Those were actually quite scarce on the CASE base, and the rules for their hide-and-seek game dictated that she was not allowed to leave the base, and she also was not to hide in rooms where she might damage equipment or overly disturb the personnel.

Since there was quite some activity on the base at the moment, those rules seriously limited her flexibility. Actually, the probe pondered, Kimberly Wells did not know about them, but it would surely be quite unfair to not abide to them. If she simply went outside and flew off somewhere, Kimberly would not stand any chance of ever finding her. Despite the huge temptation, she did not want to be a spoilsport. So she floated up to a room, the only one where no people were working at the moment. It was a room that the humans used to clean themselves. While the probe found it strange that the humans needed a specific room for cleaning, it presented a nice opportunity right now, since it was empty and also contained no delicate equipment.

On the other hand, the probe realized, there also was no spot in the room where she could actually hide. No corners and no devices large enough to obstruct Kimberly's view. As she turned around to leave the room again, she noticed that it was already too late. She could hear Kimberly's voice in the corridor behind the door, asking people if they had seen a white robot float past. _Hmph,_ she thought. Asking other people for directions was against the rules as well. Anyway, she badly needed a way now to hide in this room, no matter what. Looking around, she detected that the installations in this room were of a similar color and material as her outer shell. Maybe...

The white probe decided that this was the only way to go. She picked up a towel from a rail and put it over her head, to cover her black faceplate. Then she settled down in a corner of the room, retracted her head and fins, switched off her eye display and held completely still. Hopefully she would pass off as some kind of bathroom installation.

* * *

The term "observation lounge" had been no exaggeration at all. Thomas West and Rick Sterling were standing in a large round chamber, located on the ocean floor, with completely transparent walls all around. It contained both cozy recreational seats and also some computer stations to keep record of any observations made, and it was connected to the station platform through an elevator shaft.

Huge floodlights were attached to the chamber's outside to illuminate the surroundings if necessary. At the moment, those lights were set to low power, but it was sufficient for a good view on the flora and fauna beyond the plastic walls.

The view was truly impressive, but West, knowing what he was seeing, could not really enjoy it. The outlook bore rather dark signs of foreboding for him, since as a professional botanist and biochemist, he recognized immediately that Serling was right with his evaluation. The seaweed showed clear signs not only of reduced growth, but also of ongoing decay.

And while he was observing the plant life, he noticed, to his dismay, something else out there. Dead fish were scattered around on the seafloor. Numerous groups of dead fish actually.

While this fact of course could also have been just a coincidence, West had meanwhile given up believing in coincidenced. What he was seeing out there in the ocean fortified his decision to suggest a declaration of emergency at the BnL Head Office to his superiors.

For as he was regarding the decayed weed and fish, a grim picture started forming in his mind. First dead farm plants, then dead seaweed, now dead fish. He was wondering if the next step would be what logic implied it to be.

In his mind, West was seeing dead people.

* * *

"Yes, I think she went in there," a CASE employee told Kimberly Wells and pointed towards a bathroom.

"Thanks," Kim said with a smirk and walked towards the door. As she opened it and let her view graze over the interior of the room, it took her a while to recognize the inactive probe robot hovering in a corner, a towel draped over her head, trying to keep as still as she could, which seemingly was not easy with her ever-moving gravitic drive.

Kimblerly could barely stifle a chuckle. This was just too cute. There she was, a respected senior journalist, playing hide-and-seek with a robotic probe. No, McCrow was right, this robot was more than just a probe. She _was_ something special, and she deserved an appropriate treatment.

So the journalist decided to play along. She looked around the room several times. "Hmm well, no, the robot's not in here. Must have gone somewhere else meanwhile. I hope I can still find her."

After Kim had left the room, the white probe robot half-opened one eye and glanced around. She could barely see through the towel, but she noticed that she was alone and that the journalist had obviously not recognized her. She pondered that it was quite interesting how a simple towel could have managed to hide her. She decided to include this information into her programming, maybe it would be of use later.


	10. Decisions and Deceptions

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**  
Episode 9**

**"Decisions and Deceptions"**

(Episode 2 in the plotline **"Shelby's Ark"**)

Thomas West let his view graze, absorbed in thought, over the people that were sitting with him at the large table in conference room A113. The illustrious round of important persons and the fact that the conference was being held at the BnL Head Office, he thought grimly, at least implied that his concerns and warnings were being taken seriously.

Alan Derring was there, the head of the Agricultural Survey Institute and West's boss, and also Rick Talon from the Analytics and Statistics department. The CASE institute was represented by its director Alex Mendez, and West recognized Carl Landry from their robotics department.

But most notable of course were the three officials from BnL itself. One was Ralf Peterson, the person in charge for agricultural affairs; the next was Barnaby Serkis, a rather mysterious and powerful person from the inner circle of Forthright's personal advisors. Some claimed that only Richard Wells, the Chief Secretary himself, was closer to Shelby than him. The third official was not known to him, but it appeared to be some kind of secretary, wielding a datapad. He was obviously quite apt for this position, since he was already busy taking notes, despite so far no one had said a word.

That situation changed as Serkis raised his voice. "Alright then. Good day, Gentlemen. I trust you've all been informed about the situation at hand, anyway I'd like to ask Mr. West to reiterate his findings, maybe some new details will be revealed that have been overseen so far."

With a little lump in his throat, since he was not really expecting to be asked for a speech, West stood up. He gave an outline of how the state of affairs presented itself in his view, of the evaluation results he had come to at the farms and of the discovery he had made on the Desalinator platform.

"So in my view," he summed up, "some process must have set in that adversely influences plant life on a large scale, both on the land and in the sea, and which might even have caused these fish to perish. Although the latter part is not yet proven, it would be quite an odd coincidence."

"And so far, none of your examinations have turned up a possible reason for this? Something biological or chemical in both the farm soil and the seafloor?" asked Peterson who still seemed convinced that something as huge as this just had to be openly and obviously lying there on the ground.

"No, Sir, nothing yet. Whatever it is, it's so subtle - or sophisticated - that our analysis methods cannot reveal it," West replied. _Or maybe we're looking in the wrong place,_ he thought.

And as if he had read West's mind, Talon suddenly piped up. "What if it's nothing in the ground at all? What if it is in the air? I'm wondering why nobody from Operation Cleanup is here. I'd not be surprised if their trash incinerators had something to do with the problem."

"You seem to be forgetting though," Carl Landry interjected, "that since the Fermilab folks came up with the Transducer technology, there are no more incinerators. Thus, no more toxic exhaust."

Talon pondered for a moment, seemingly trying to come up with a counter-argument, but in the end he kept quiet. West on the other hand pondered if it was possible that Talon's thought _did_ have some merit.

"Gentlemen, please. The purpose of our meeting here in fact is not to assign blame for the crisis or to find its definite cause, but to think of possible alternatives should we not find a way to reverse the damage that has been done," Serkis said in a calm voice that yet permitted no contradiction. "If anyone of you has any idea, feel free to utter them."

An embarrassed silence spread among the conference table. West could see the strained faces of his colleagues, juggling thoughts and ideas in their minds, but obviously resulting in nothing mature enough to be openly presented. That is, until Alex Mendez from the CASE institute broke the quietness.

"I might have an idea. It's not fully thought-out yet, it would comprise a huge effort on many levels, and I'm quite sure you're not going to like it. But it might be our only option if push comes to shove."

* * *

"For heaven's sake, Jim, can't you take care of this yourself for a change? I got this documentary to finish, you know the deadline is in three days, and I still haven't gotten appointments with some key people at the Head Office."

Kimberly Wells was quite angry with her colleague who obviously needed her okay and amen for every article he wrote. As if she was his babysitter. Before he could continue bothering her, she closed the door to her office and shook her head. _Sheesh,_ she though as she sat down at her desk to continue reviewing her essay.

The episode with the white robot at the CASE outpost had been quite a distraction as well, but a very positive one at that. Kim's mind wandered back to the little interview she had done with the robot. After she had let the probe win at hide-and-seek, she thought with a smile.

It had not only been the first time that she had played such a game with a robot, but also the first time that she had done an actual interview with one. And her replies has been so well-thought-out and sophisticated that Kim almost had forgotten that she was not talking to an actual person. Prompting her host to admit that the robot was in fact remote-controlled had not changed anything about that, she snickered. Okay, the robot's speech synthesis system had seemed to still be in beta stadium, but luckily the roboticist McCrow had shown Kim how to use his computer console to access the probe's internal communication messages.

Kim nodded to herself; she was for sure going to put the material she collected during this excursion to good use later. But for now there was the pressing deadline for the BnL documentary, so she picked up her review where she had left off.

BnL had become large and strong enough to once more come to the rescue when another crisis arose, shortly before the new century began. Severe mismanagement in several cities had led to increasing discontent, especially among the workers directly or indirectly employed by the administration. Wages were not paid, work hours were increased and social security reduced. Before long the first strikes were conducted and public services began breaking down. Transportation and postal services were the first to go, followed by construction, upkeep and trash pickup. Since they did not know where else to put it, people started dumping their garbage in the streets.

Crime rate increased, and the inhabitants of the quarters where it became too bad fled to other parts of the city, slowly causing overpopulation there. The whole process was a downward spiral. The government was unable to cope with the situation, so it spread to more and more city quarters, finally leading to a complete failure of public order.

The cities were - more or less officially - evacuated, although most people had already left on their own long before. The only ones left were groups of renegades who naturally welcomed the situation. They rampaged in the mostly depopulated and run-down city, turning it into something not far from a battlefield.

But, of course the evacuated people had to _go somewhere_, so the overcrowding moved on to the next city...

Nobody understood how the situation could get so badly out of control, or how exactly it had started in the first place. But everybody remembered that BnL, for the second time during its existence, came to the great rescue. With their sheer unlimited money and manpower they promised to get everything back under control, but of course to be able to do that they needed extensive political power in addition to their economic wealth.

So it was done, and the rest was history. BnL had kept to their promise; they stopped the ongoing rampage before it could spread to every city, restored public order in those that had not yet been given up and initiated "Operation Cleanup" in those that had become totally overrun by trash and filth.

The downside of course, if one wanted to speak of a downside when talking about mankind having been saved twice, from extinction, or at least from collapse of society, was that BnL was now virtually almighty and omnipresent. And that not just on the holographic billboards that lined every street. Commerce and politics had become one and the same. Where there was the President, there was now a CEO. The Senate now was the Board of Management, and the voters had become shareholders.

The President's counselors now were what they mysteriously called the "inner circle of the CEO's personal advisors". Kim assumed that such an enigmatic composition of words was necessary to appropriately increase the aura of secrecy which shrouded what was probably just a bunch of people, sitting at a conference table, pondering what to label their newest brand of oat meal.

Kim chuckled inwardly. The notion of personal advisors had triggered the thought that she badly needed to get these appointments with at least two specific people at the BnL Head Office. Without these her documentary just would not be complete.

So she decided to phone them up again and this time keep bugging them until they agreed to see her.

* * *

West was just as baffled as the other members of the conference. He looked into incredulous, partly whitened faces, and even the arduous secretary had stopped taking notes. It took a while until someone spoke up.

"You... you can't be serious," Peterson stammered. "Do you have any idea what that would mean?"

"I tend not to make jokes when facing the possible demise of our race, Mr. Peterson," Mendez responded. "And I'm very much aware of the implications. You surely know what the S and the E in our institute's name stand for."

"But... but how do you suppose we should pull this off? I mean, there's a hundred million people to feed, and we don't have..."

"We got the technology and the resources, the effort will be putting them to the right use for once. Look at the luxury cruise starliners your company is sending out on a daily basis. Don't tell me there's no way to build and use ships for more productive purposes. We need to start thinking not just of the wealthy, but of everyone. We need to start thinking not in terms of sales and surplus, but of survival."

Peterson stared in pondering silence. He knew that Mendez was right, but he was not willing to give up on his company's creed so easily.

"But if you can't bring yourself to see the bigger picture here," Mendez added, "you might consider this: your company has, almost literally, all the money in the world. If you use it to provide what is needed to pull through with this plan, you'll have saved mankind, again. For the third time inside a century, if my count was correct. I don't think any other company in history can claim that for itself."

Peterson's face lit up. Mendez had a point there, and he liked that point much better than simply having to play the Good Samaritan. Although he was not fully convinced yet, he nodded towards Mendez.

"Alright then," the head of the CASE Institute continued. "As I said, the idea is not fully thought-out. It will require lots of planning, starting with exact figures how much food is needed, and estimations how long our supplies will last, given the current plant decay rate." He looked at Derring and Talon from the Agricultural Survey. Talon nodded, though still a little white-faced.

"You'll get everything you need from us," Derring said. "But in my opinion we should consider this plan only as a last resort should our attempts to fix the problem here fail. And if we go ahead with this, I strongly suggest that we keep it secret. I don't dare imagine what would happen if it became public."

"I quite agree," Peterson interjected. "It's also important to spread the necessary work as widely as possible. We need to involve as many subsidiaries as we can get, and have each one do just a small portion of the overall project. The 'bigger picture', as you called it, needs to stay with us."

Noticing nods of common consent, Peterson added towards Mendez, "Given that we'll manage to build or retrofit all the necessary ships, what about the robotic crews? As you know, long-distance hyperspace travel is not yet possible for humans. And most importantly, are there suitable planets? Has your 'extraterrestrial vegetation' project made sufficient progress?"

Mendez looked back at Peterson as if he had found the one weak spot in his plan. "To be frank, not yet. But I'm all confident that we'll get there in time. We found a good number of planets that look promising through our telescopes, and our robotics department is making progress with the training of an evaluator probe to determine their suitability on location."

Noticing the questioning look from the BnL conference participants, Landry took over and gave them a little outline of A.I. training methods. "To answer the question about robotic crews: We're working on several new models that should, together with retrofitted existing models, well be able to run a spaceship mission of such dimensions without a human crew.

"Especially for this purpose we're constructing a robotic autopilot with a highly advanced A.I. It will be capable of controlling almost all functions of a spaceship and of operating even on complex mission plans and sets of directives, without any human intervention. If it checks out okay, and I'm quite positive it will, you might even consider installing it on your starliners, it'd sure gonna be a great help for the human captains."

* * *

The hovercar was gliding smoothly along a road that had seen better days. It was of rather rural makeup, not at all like the large highways one would find in or connecting cities, but was just wide enough to serve its purpose: accommodating food transports. A frown of surprise appeared on the face of Kimberly Wells who was sitting in the passenger's seat. Harry Trevis, her colleague and camera operator, also noticed something unusual as they approached the perimeter of the Shelbington Central Farm. The entrance passage which usually allowed visitors to pass the huge fence surrounding the area was obviously closed shut. And their astonishment even increased as they noticed the "Area Is Off Limits" sign next to the entrance, together with the armed security post whose job obviously was to enforce the sign's inscription.

They parked their car and approached the guard who was regarding them with suspicious eyes. A little BnL logo was decorating his uniform.

"Uuhm, hello, I'm Kimberly Wells from the BnL Network News. I have an appointment with the farmers, Mr. Jennings and Mr. Daley, for an interview. Also I'm kinda wondering what an armed post is doing here?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Wells, but the Shelbington Farm is closed off until further notice."

Regarding the fence and sign, Kim returned, "Yes, I can quite see that. I'm not sure if you know who I am, or that the documentary for which we are here is being produced on behalf of your employer. Considering that, I find it a little odd that we're denied access?"

"I know who you are, Mrs. Wells, but I'm afraid my orders are to make no exceptions. Nobody is to enter the farm area until the investigations are complete."

Kim felt the familiar stir of her journalistic senses that awakened at the word "investigation". Instinctively, she resorted to reverse psychology. "Oh.. well. That's too bad really." She turned to Trevis, "When was the deadline for the documentary?"

Trevis immediately picked up the act. "Tomorrow already. Not enough time to travel to another farm I suppose."

"Damnit. Well, the documentary needs to be cancelled then. Sir, could I please have your name and badge number? I need to file a report why we could not finish this job."

The security agent became a little uneasy, seemingly pondering if his instructions applied to someone who was under orders from his superiors. "Well.. yes, sure. Look, I'm sorry, M'am, but I can't let you in. They'd have my head if I did."

"Huh? It's just a farm, what could possibly be going on there that deserves such a commotion?"

"I can't tell you that either, it's been declared top secret. I'm really sorry."

No need to be, Kim pondered. The guard obviously was not too experienced in dealing with journalists, otherwise he would have known that admitting to one that something was a secret did not at all help to _keep_ it secret. And even more so when it was labeled _top_ secret.

Kim sighed, smiling only on the inside. "Okay then, we won't bother you further." Looking at Trevis she noticed the little smirk on his face. "Let's go, we'll surely find some worthwhile replacement for the documentary. Reporting about "BnL Food - Adequate or Adiposis?" didn't sound overly interesting anyway."

Back in the car, Trevis was still smirking. "Top secret, huh?"

"Riiight," Kim snickered and pulled out a little datapad. She pressed a few buttons and pulled up a map of the region which indicated, in a dangerously red color, where the fence around the farm was located. She picked a spot, pointed at it and showed the pad to Trevis. "What do you say, right there, 10 PM today?"

Trevis' smile became even wider as he quickly looked at the map and then nodded to Kim.

* * *

"Well, Mr. West, what do you say? You've been very quiet."

Thomas West jumped a little as Serkis, after having himself quietly listened to the discussion for a long while, abruptly addressed him.

"What do you think," Serkis added, "from your viewpoint, is the plan that your colleagues are suggesting doable in the first place?"

West pondered for a while. "Well. This is something completely new, surely has never been done or even been considered before. But I suppose, if you indeed find planets with comparable conditions as we have here, like temperature, atmospheric and soil composition, precipitation, well you know, all the things that contribute to successful growth... If you actually manage that and to bring a fleet of harvesting robots there, I don't see why not. But be aware that planetary conditions are a very delicate matter. I don't dare estimate what the chances are to find such a world, but I suppose they're not very high."

Mendez nodded. "Yes of course, that's correct. But I'd say if we don't try it at all, the chances are exactly zero. What do we have to lose? I mean, except someone has any further propositions?"

There was silence again, and people shook their heads as Mendez looked into the round. This was undoubtedly going to be mankind's biggest endeavor to date, West pondered. It dwarfed even the fight against the sterility problem in comparison.

"Well then," Peterson said, "we need to set some things in motion here. I'll contact Kranz from the Forthright Space Center and inform him that we'll need a pretty large fleet of transport ships. Mr. Derring, your department will conduct the necessary research concerning botanical aspects? And Mr. Mendez, your responsibility is the robotic crews and finding us some homesteads away from home."

"We're already on it," Landry replied instead of Mendez. "Our robots will be ready in time. And as for spaceships, there is one other important thing. Even before we can think about sending out fleets of harvester ships, we need a single, small and very fast scout ship. You see, it's impossible to determine from here if a planet is actually suitable. We need to get a robotic probe on location, that's what we're building the plant evaluator prototype for."

"Very true," Mendez continued. "We'll travel to our outpost base in L.A. right after we're finished here, to inform them about the change of plans. While we're doing that, you need to tell Kranz that this scout ship has top priority."

"I'll pass on your request," Peterson said after Mendez had finished giving a quick explanation of the calculations involved in determining how much time they might have left for the overall project.

"I think I'll come along with Mr. Mendez to the CASE outpost," Derring announced. "And maybe Mr. West should come as well? He's probably best suited to answer any botanical questions."

West nodded, and Serkis, who had once more quietly listened, looked into the round and found mostly agitated, but hopefully confident faces. Now at least they had a plan by which to go. "Alright gentlemen, that shall be it all..."

A little beeping noise from a tabletop communication device interrupted him. "Please excuse me." He operated the device and quickly flew over the words that appeared on its screen. "Alright, thank you gentlemen, that shall be all for now. You know what to do, so let us get to work to make Operation Homestead a success."

A little smile crossed Peterson's face as the conference participants rose and turned towards the exit. Obviously his little remark had unwittingly become the project's official designation.

As they were about to leave the room, Serkis added, "May I please ask the BnL representatives to remain? Mr. Wells himself has requested an additional internal conversation with us."

* * *

"Anything else, Kim?" the shopkeeper asked Kimberly Wells with a smile.

"Ahm, yeah, I'll also need some strong personal searchlights, a number 5 wire cutter, and then..." The journalist leaned forward a bit and lowered her voice, although there were no other customers in the hardware shop at the time. "I'll need to borrow two thermosuits. And most importantly, I need no questions asked, Frankie."

The smile got wider, turning into a smirk. "Thermosuits, eh? Has been quite a while since I last sold one of those," he said, marking the word "sold" with air quotes. "I think the guy was going on an expedition to the Antarctic. Mmh, not easy to come by these days. But you got lucky, I just _happen_ to have some in stock. Just a sec."

Kim chuckled. _Got lucky_, yeah right. She knew Frankie better than that. There was barely any semi-legal merchandise that he could not get his hands on. This was not the first time that he had provided Trevis and her with some unusual tools for similarly unusual assignments. Or rather, ventures, since most of them her superiors knew nothing about, and also chose not to ask her about, as long as she came home with a good story.

Kim looked around nervously, hoping that she was going to stay the only customer, since she really could not afford any questions asked. Although it was common knowledge that journalists tended to resort to, well, creative means from time to time, what they were planning to do was not exactly legal.

But in this regard she indeed _did_ get lucky. A few minutes later, Frankie returned with a package containing the two thermosuits. "Too bad I'm not allowed to ask, otherwise I'd sure be keen on knowing what you're planning to do with those."

Kim smiled. "Yes, Frankie, you're not. But, as usual, thanks!"

"No biggie," the shopkeeper waved aside. "But when you return them, at least tell me if they did what you wanted them to do."

"Will do," Kim said, and picking up her wares, she turned around to leave the shop.

* * *

Jennifer Ivy was sitting at a table in the CASE base's cafeteria, indulging in a piece of cake and a coffee. Normally her weight-related bad conscience used to win over her appetite for sweets, but today she figured she deserved a little treat, since she had just finished the framework design for a new robot model. It had been particularly hard to please her superiors this time. But after many redesign iterations, she had decided to try and give it an interesting and appealing look, and the final shape had turned out to be a resemblance of a ship's steering wheel. She found it was a befitting form for a robotic spaceship autopilot.

And since the robot would be mostly confined to the bridge of the ship in question, it needed no actual locomotion system. It rather would, in addition to radio links, be moved on a system of rails to whatever instrument it needed to reach.

Now that the design was finished, she pondered, it was time for the engineers to build a prototype, and then the robotics people would have a new plaything to test their A.I. programming on.

Just as if that thought had been the cue, Dave McCrow entered the cafeteria and walked to a counter to pick up some refreshment for himself. Then he looked around the room, and Jennifer invitingly waved her arm.

"Hi there, Jenny, may I have a seat?"

"Hi, of course! Taking a break too?"

"Yep. We finished a series of training sessions with the EVE prototype today, and now Jim and me are working on a very interesting piece of software. I heard you completed the design for the robot autopilot?"

"Yeah, finally," Jennifer replied, rolling her eyes with a grin. "I'm gonna do a presentation at our headquarters in a few days, and I hope there won't be any 'unforeseen suggestions' this time."

McCrow grinned. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Well anyway, great that you're finished. Too bad I can't attend the presentation... you know, training duties."

Jennifer smiled. "Yeah, I heard you have great fun with your new probe. I hope you like her design?"

"Hell yeah, she's adorable! I suppose the autopilot will look nowhere as cute."

"Well," Jennifer chuckled, "that'll mostly depend on the level of cuteness you roboticists can put into its A.I. How's that faring by the way?"

"Not sure, another group is working on that. Last time I checked though they were already in an advanced simulation phase. I heard they're planning to use the autopilot for the first SETV exploration missions, so that'll give them a good deal of time still."

"Yep, I'm quite looking forward to that project! Fascinating stuff, trying to find terraformable planets. Just too bad you can't go there yourself and see your probe in action, eh?"

"Indeed I'd quite like to. For now I can't, but I'm sure that will change eventually. I doubt that we already discovered all laws of physics that the universe has to offer."

Jennifer nodded in agreement as they continued eating their cake.

* * *

Serkis, Peterson and the secretary with his notepad were still sitting at the conference table, about half an hour after the other participants had left. They were waiting nervously for Richard Wells to join them, and even Serkis, who usually appeared as if nothing in this world could unnerve him, was stirring a little.

As the door opened and the Chief Secretary entered, they half rose and half jumped up from their chairs. They indicated a respectful bow towards Wells, who nodded in return and took his seat at the table, thereby declaring the secret conference opened.

"Good day, gentlemen. I'll cut right to the chase, since I suppose we have no time to lose. I've been following your deliberations before, and I agree with your conclusion that we should go ahead with the suggested plan. Mr. Forthright though requires us not to put all our eggs in one basket. We are to think of a contingency plan, in case the so-called Operation Homestead fails."

Peterson nodded quietly, while a little smirk appeared momentarily on Serkis' face at the mentioning of Shelby Forthright.

"If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears," Wells added and waited, looking into the others' faces.

It had been hard enough to come up with the Homestead plan, Peterson thought, how are we three supposed to figure out any contingency now? Remaining quiet, he was staring into space until Serkis spoke up.

"I might have something," he said. "But just like Mr. Mendez' proposal before, or rather even more so, I am convinced that neither you nor Mr. Forthright are going to like it."

"Well?" Wells prompted him.

"Let us just consider that spaceships, in general, can be used for more than one purpose. And in particular, I am thinking of our considerable fleet of cruise ships."

As he continued outlining his plan, the look on Peterson's face became more and more horrified, while Wells' expression revealed that he was quite convinced that Serkis had to be kidding.

But it turned out that, in fact, he was not.


	11. Ascension and Decay

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**  
Episode 10**

**"Ascension and Decay"** (Working Title)

(Episode 3 in the plotline **"Shelby's Ark"**)

"Well, if we needed any proof that this crisis _is_ serious, now we have it," West joked halfheartedly. He was referring to the fact that he had the privilege to be riding in an AD-M glider, for the second time within three days. And this time he was even piloting it, since Derring, who was riding with him, had no pilot license.

At the glider's side a second vehicle of identical design but with different institute insignia was dashing along. They were en route to the CASE outpost base in Los Angeles, and their active and interlinked autodrives mostly relieved the pilots of the need to operate the crafts. Derring still found it a little unnerving though that his pilot was sitting comfortably leaned back in his seat instead of having his hands on the controls.

Since West's last glider flight, his priorities had somewhat changed. Finding the cause for the plant decay had become secondary, he pondered, as the former skyline of Los Angeles came into view. Among the actual buildings several huge heaps of trash were stretching heavenwards, assembled and stacked by the ever-busy horde of WALL-E robots and waiting to be processed in the transducer plants. Their invention really had been a blessing for everyone, West thought. No more poisonous exhaust, but raw materials almost free of charge.

A warning chime sounded. As West and Derring looked out of their windows, they could see the reason even without checking the AD-M's computer screens. A considerable sandstorm was brewing up and quickly getting closer from the opposite direction.

"Oh great," West sighed. "As usual, those things come when we least need them." He operated a few controls and tapped a button on the headset he was wearing. "Glider A-1 to A-2, I suppose you also received the sandstorm warning? According to computer calculations the storm is not going to hit the CASE base, but it will cross our path to it. I suggest we increase our speed to get through before _we_ get hit."

A few seconds later, the confirmation from Mendez and Landry in the other glider came in, and West gave his autodrive computer the necessary instructions. The two crafts accelerated swiftly but without any noticeable effect on their passengers, and the drive's display indicated an E.T.A. of 10 minutes to the CASE base.

* * *

The little insect was scuttling over the ground, following the strange machine from a distance. He did not understand why he was doing so, but his instinct told him that the machine was quite versed in finding things that were of considerable nutritious value to him.

As the machine stopped and scooped an amount of the various items that were lying all around into its belly, the insect knew that it was time. He sped up the pace of his six legs to catch up with it, and reached it just as it picked up the cube that had tumbled out of its belly. Unnoticed, he scrambled up the back of the noisy apparatus. Wondering why it was always spitting out the things again that it had eaten, he was waiting to be carried upwards onto the huge tower of filthy objects. On its top, the insect had found out, he had for some reason the best chances of finding something to eat.

A little while later the insect was devouring a sweet creamy substance he indeed had found. The machine was setting down the new cube and arranging it neatly among the ones that were already in place, as a strange bleeping noise emanated from it. Suddenly the machine became distinctly nervous. It looked around, wheeled back and forth, until it spotted the distant cloud of a sandstorm that seemingly was approaching. Realizing that it was not a good idea to be surprised by a sandstorm up here on this tower, and hoping that the machine knew what to do, the insect darted over to it and settled, once more unnoticed, down on its cube-shaped body.

As the robot turned towards the descent and started its hurried way down, the insect looked around and noticed that the sandstorm was quickly closing in. From that point on, it was a matter of mere seconds.

Although the storm did not hit them directly, it passed by close enough to cause two of the nearby trash towers to collapse. Since they merely consisted of loosely stacked trash cubes, their stability was nowhere up to par to withstand a storm. Cubes of garbage were sent flying all around, and several of them hit the tower that the machine was frantically trying to get down from.

The ground started shaking beneath them, and hearing the panicked bleeps and chatters from the apparatus, the insect instinctively tried to find a place to hide. He scrambled around the cube-shaped body and finally found the little gap where its arms were connected to the body. The insect slipped in, just in time as the ground gave way.

The tower partly collapsed, its cubes started sliding, from top downwards, into the adjacent streets. Squealing, the robot was caught in the sliding trash and was swept along with it. The little insect was tossed around violently inside the trash chamber, but thanks to his sturdy carapace he overcame the wild ride mostly unscathed.

Then the slide came to a halt, and with it the robot and its passenger. A little disoriented, the insect scuttled out of the machine's innards the same way he had gotten in, finding it half-buried under the garbage. Its arms and triangular legs were whirring madly, and it uttered trains of confused chattering.

After having waited for a while, the insect realized that the robot probably was unable to free itself from its trap, and having no idea what to do about it, he decided to move along and explore some other place for possible food sources.

* * *

A few hours later, just after nightfall, two figures were exiting a hovercar under cover of darkness. At first glance, given the glittering silvery suits they were wearing, they could well be taken for astronauts or for actors playing some strange alien visitors.

Their thermosuits were actually meant to keep a person's body temperature up in a cold environment. They were, among other uses, employed on polar expeditions, but the temperatures at the Shelbington Central Farm were not exactly arctic. The two persons of course had a different use for the thermosuits in mind, in this case to fool the security system at the perimeter fence.

Since a farm was not considered a primary target for incursions, security measures were rather marginal. They consisted of motion detector cameras that were posted along the fence - using visual light during daytime and infrared during nighttime. It would be easy for the two persons to circumvent detection with their heat-absorbing thermosuits, although their interiors of course quickly turned into a sauna.

"Gosh, I hate these suits during summer. Why must warm days and secret stories always coincide," Trevis mumbled.

"Well Harry, you know, no pain, no gain," Kim chuckled. "Come on, as soon as we're past the fence we can take the things off."

They shouldered their equipment backpacks and started applying the wire cutters that Kim had acquired to the fence. Luckily the lack of noteworthy security measures also extended to the fence's sturdiness, so it did not take them long to cut a hole into it through which they were able to crawl.

"Hey Kim, have you ever wondered what our 'fence hole-to-story' ratio might be?"

"I suppose I don't really wanna know, nor does my lawyer."

Behind the fence, they crossed an extended grassy area. The faint moonlight was barely enough to see their hands before their eyes, but they did not dare to turn on their searchlights yet, as not to trigger the perimeter motion sensors. As they reached a service road, they decided that they were definitely out of the cameras' vicinity, so they took off the thermosuits and stuffed them into their backpacks. Then they looked around.

They had entered the farm near the border of some large strawberry fields. A little distance away they could spot several utility sheds behind which an extended area of wheat fields started.

"Well, what do you think where we should start looking? Got any idea yet what might be the big secret here?" Trevis asked.

"I haven't the foggiest. I suppose we go exploring a bit for now. Those sheds over there look like a good start."

They started on their way to the sheds, walking a little off the road through the strawberry fields. From time to time they heard a little rustling sound out of the darkness on the ground. Probably some small animal, they figured, feeling a little spooked.

* * *

"So, Carl, what have you been working on recently?"

Outside the Los Angeles CASE outpost, McCrow and his colleague Carl Landry were taking a little stroll to cool off after the agitating conference that had just ended. Both of them were still a little edgy, yet cautiously optimistic when looking ahead to continuing their project whose importance had significantly increased during the last few hours.

They were both enjoying the fresh air of the night that imparted a certain sense of relief. "Oh, I've been mostly busy with the construction of this new model of robotic spaceship autopilot. Did you hear about it? Actually it was supposed to go into testing in like a year, but with the changed plans we just discussed, you can imagine that its schedule has been seriously bumped up as well. What about you? I mean, besides that vegetation probe that has to be your all-time favorite project."

McCrow smiled a little. "Most of the tech recently developed indeed went into that probe. For example the high-precision EM field projector our engineering guys created. It's used to bind the probe's limbs to her torso, without the need for actual physical connections. It's way more flexible in terms of appendage translation and rotation than any substantial joint could be."

"Wow, that sounds really nifty. Would like to see that for myself!"

Noticing the soft humming noise that came from the direction of the base entrance, McCrow chuckled a bit. "Well, seems you're getting lucky. Speaking of the devil, here she comes. Hey EVE, over here!" he exclaimed and motioned to the white probe that came hovering out of the base.

"Hell, you're right. Looks like her head and arms are just floating there. _Really_ nifty!"

_"Dave McCrow,"_ the probe warbled, greeting the roboticist.

"EVE, this is Carl Landry, a colleague and friend of mine."

The probe turned towards the second roboticist and her eye display flickered momentarily, indicating that she was processing a new piece of information. _"Carl Landry. Hello."_ she trilled.

Landry showed a wide grin. "Hi there, EVE probe." Stepping closer to her, he looked at McCrow and asked, "Can I try it?" Then he took one of the probe's fins into his hands. He tugged, pulled and twisted it, to check if it was living up to the flexibility McCrow had promised.

The probe's eyes took on a half-surprised, half-displeasing expression and she uttered a little nervous warble. Noticing her uneasiness, McCrow softly said to her, "Don't worry, little white dot. Carl is a good friend, he won't hurt you."

Absorbed in his examination of the fin's mobility, Landry had not noticed the probe's reaction. Instead he was checking how many times he could rotate the fin around its axis and whether the binding field would eventually fail like a mechanical joint might do.

"You can twist the fin as often as you like, EM fields are very patient," McCrow grinned.

* * *

Kimberly and Trevis were trudging through a barley field as Kim suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. She made a motion to Trevis and quickly crouched down, her colleague immediately following suit. "Watch out, service bot! Shh!" she warned as a hovering brown robot came into view. Luckily it was just a gardening machine assigned to water the plants, and it was not equipped with sensors that might detect intruders.

The robot hovered just a few meters above the ground and crossed the spot where the two makeshift housebreakers where hiding. It poured some water from its tank, soaking them, then it hovered away with a soft electrical humming. "Oh great.." Trevis grumbled in irritation and checked if his camera was still operative.

"We got lucky this time," Kim said as they stood up from the grain and continued their way. "It could have been a security patrol. Anyway I think the robot came from the shed we're headed to, so maybe we'll really find something interesting there."

As they reached their destination, they sneaked in through a little backdoor, and found themselves in a small and unlit deposit for inactive robots. The silent brownish machines, obviously of the same model they had just met in the field, were arranged on mechanical rails that had few empty places. Probably the spots where those robots that were currently working outside were usually housed.

"Do you see anything strange here?" Kim asked her partner while they were taking a good look around.

Trevis shook his head. "Nope, nothing besides a distinct creepy feeling when looking at those robots there."

"C'mon, they're just gardener models. Okay then, let's move on."

While approaching the next building they hoped to have better luck, since it looked rather like a residential house than a utility shed, and it some of its windows were even still lit.

"Careful now, don't cause any commotion they might hear," Kim whispered as they continued towards the house. She was glad for the pitch black clothes they were wearing. Frankie had told her that their fabric had certain light-absorbing properties that would make them even more suitable for their... undertaking.

The hovercar that was parked on the building's front side confirmed that it was inhabited. Kim and Trevis approached a side with unlit windows and sneaked along its wall, carefully crouching when they passed by the first floor windows. Peeking around the corner to the backside, they noticed a balcony on the second floor on which two persons, probably the farmers they were supposed to have had that interview with, were having a spirited conversation.

Kim motioned for her partner to lay low and activate his audio recorder. With a smirk she pondered that they were going to get their interview after all, even if it was going to be a little one-sided.

* * *

"Really remarkable," Landry said as he released the fin, letting it smoothly float back into its neutral position.

"Yeah, that's just one of the many amazing things she can do. For example, look at this! EVE, please show my friend how your scanner works, willya? Like, uhm, just check out if he is a plant."

The probe smirked and nodded, then she activated her scanning beam and let it sweep over Landry, who jumped a little in surprise.

"Whoa whoa! Hey, this beam tickles! What is it?"

"Don't worry, Carl, it's completely harmless, and surely won't tickle you more than you tickled EVE's arm. The beam is the visual portion of a laser reflection feedback system for biochemical analysis. It scans the optical properties of the material it hits on an atomic level, giving the analysis core of the probe's neural network a pattern which she can match against her internal flora database.

"With her extensive knowledge about terrestrial vegetation she'd be a really good botanist or gardener, probably be a better one than any of the guys at the Agricultural Survey could ever be, but for now we need her for another purpose." Looking warmly at the probe, he added, "Well, maybe some day though..."

EVE looked back at him, with a slightly puzzled expression. She possessed a basic understanding of her inner workings, but what McCrow had just said was mostly incomprehensible to her. _"Plants?"_ she warbled.

"Yeah EVE," the roboticist chuckled, "I told my friend that you're good at finding plants."

"I'm sure she is. Oh hey, how did you manage to get her eye simulation display so expressive?"

"Well, the display, which by the way also houses her video capturing device, has a number of preset emotional figures, but EVE's network can also control each screen pixel individually in brightness. That way the internal emotional state of her A.I. is transcribed into visual eye patterns, most of which she has learned from observing people around her and noting what facial expressions go along with which feelings and moods. For example the squinting of her eyes when she tries to focus a distant object. That's definitely not a preset figure," McCrow grinned.

_"Pree-sat fi-guh?"_ came another curious warbling from the white probe, prompting McCrow to reassure her that she had pretty eyes and was not to worry about their tech talk.

The probe nodded and decided to leave the conversation to look for something else to do. She hovered off, showing some playful maneuvers on her way.

"Whoa," Landry commented at the sight. "I see her aerial mobility quite lives up to what the gliders had me expect."

As they watched EVE fly around and then approach a number of stacked trash cubes nearby, a thought came to Landry. "Hm, now that you mentioned how her network controls the eye display, I noticed a slightly, well, bothered expression when I tested her fin? I suppose that was simulated reaction?"

"It sure was a reaction to your tugging at her fin, yeah, but not really simulated as such."

"What d'you mean?" Landry looked a little concerned. "I hope I didn't damage her or something?"

"Nono, don't worry. Her frame is very sturdy, but in the course of her training, she's learned more than just finding plants. Her network has a great capacity of picking up behaviors of people around her, and being handled by a stranger made her feel uncomfortable." Noticing Landry's look of slight confusion, he added, "Just like you don't go and twist the arm of a person you just met, even if you know it won't hurt them."

* * *

"...I suppose you're right," one of the farmers on the balcony said, "I've never seen the Agricultural Survey cause such an upheaval. Have you seen the leader of the guys that went into the cornfield? It was Thomas West, he's the head botanist in Derrings's team. No man, this can't be just a 'scheduled checkup' as they want us to believe."

"Yeah, and whatever it is, it seems we're not the only ones involved," answered the second farmer. "I've talked with Daniel from the other sector today. He said that the Survey visited him too, and he also heard other farmers report the same. Seems that there's something going on with the farms of the whole state. You know, I've been watching West and his group going in and out of the cornfield the whole day. I wonder what the hell they're up to...."

Kim was wondering as well. She could barely restrain her eagerness to go and unveil this secret.

"Where's Francis?", asked the first farmer, just as a humming noise set in from the direction of the house's front side. Kim and Trevis were momentarily startled as the other farmer replied, "He said he'd be right back. I think he went to park the car for the night."

"Uh-oh, that sounds bad," Trevis whispered. Kim looked up and saw what he meant. The garage in which the car was probably going to be parked was right on the backside of the house, about five meters from their hiding spot.

"Yeah, always the same with him, he'll never learn how to properly start a hovercar", laughed the first farmer, while the two intruders found themselves trapped. They could not go further around the house or the two farmers would have spotted them. They were also cut off from the way back; intensifying light from the car indicated that it was coming up right behind them. The humming of the vehicle's gravitic engine became louder and louder, while its headlights were quickly casting away the shadows Kim and Trevis were hiding in. There was only one way they could go.

"Into the cornfield, quick!", Kim hissed. They left their position and ran across an open grassy area, hoping to reach the corn plants' shelter in time. They disappeared between their leaves just a second before the car turned around the corner and bathed their former hiding spot in bright light.

One of the farmers on the balcony turned his head in the direction of the plants that quavered and rustled slightly from the journalists' intrusion. "Hey, did you hear that?" he asked, startled.

"What? The poor car suffering from Francis' inability to drive?", the other farmer said with a giggle.

"No, I think I heard something in the field... Oh well, it's probably just one of those damn rodents. Come on, let's get some more of those meatballs before Francis comes back and eats them all."

* * *

The little white probe was curiously examining a little stack of trash cubes that obviously had been produced by the trash compactor robots. Not that this was the first time that she had seen them, but this time something specific had caught her attention. She had noticed a motion among the garbage, something small was crawling under the load of scrap metal and remainders of domestic waste. As she picked up a little cube, she heard a rustling noise close by. Setting down the cube again, she followed the noise. When it stopped right beneath another heap of trash, she lightly nudged the lowest cube, causing the heap to trundle a bit. Suddenly a little creature that was swiftly moving on six tiny legs came scuttling out from under the garbage.

_"Ooh!"_ the white robot warbled curiously and hovered after the little thing. It was way smaller than those robotic rats she had met in the abandoned warehouse, and it did not seem as if it could do her any harm. She on the other hand seemed to frighten the creature, as it was quickly scuttling away from her. So she stayed at a distance and waited until the animal stopped and turned around.

Very slowly as not to scare it off, she hovered closer. The creature stayed in place; seemingly it was equipped with a similar curiosity as the robot, and that curiosity had mostly won over its scare. As the robot was about to reach the animal, she very slowly extended her fin, split her fingers apart and settled them down on the ground in front of the little thing.

For a few seconds, there was no reaction. And the robot surely had not anticipated the reaction that then followed. The creature suddenly scrambled up onto the white plastic of the probe's fingers, quickly continued up her arm, and before she could do anything, it was scuttling around in her bowl-shaped neck cavity.

* * *

"Hell, that was close...", Kim commented as they huddled down in the relative safety of the cornfield.

They quickly looked back through the row of corn plants. Their leaves were thin enough here so they could see how the hovercar was taken into the garage. As its gravitic drive, together with its headlights, was shut off, the farm fell dark and completely silent again. Also the two farmers had disappeared from the balcony.

"Okay now... one of the farmers mentioned botanists having been up to something in a cornfield. Let's hope he was talking about _this_ field here, otherwise it's even worse than the needle in the haystack. I think we should split up, so we can cover more ground."

Trevis looked further into the field. The moonlight was rather dim, and what little of it passed through the leaves cast various eerie shapes and patterns onto the surrounding vegetation and ground. A slight wind moved the tops of the stalks, causing brief rustling sounds that bounced off from every direction. Creepy scuttling of insects that were hurrying over the ground added to the ghostly ambience. Their sight was limited to about three rows of plants, behind which lay complete darkness.

"Uuhm, I kinda dislike the idea of going in there, especially alone", Trevis said, a glimpse of anxiety in his voice.

"Ah, come on, it's just a field of plants! If there's anything dangerous here, then it's your imagination. Anything else the service bots would sure have spotted, don't you think?"

"Okay okay, you're right. Still, why must secret stories also always conincide with darkness and spooky places?"

Kim chuckled a bit, took out her datapad and showed it to Trevis. "Alright. According to the aerial map we should be about here, at the perimeter between those two sectors. I'll search the right part of this field, and you'll do the left, ok? Let's follow the plant rows and use GPS positioning to keep track of where we are. It's sure easy to get lost in here," she added, looking around the rows of plants. "Let's try to cover as much of the field as we can, and signal me if you find anything unusual."

Trevis nodded, and they moved off in opposite directions.

Kim walked through the darkness with steady steps. Once her journalistic ambition had awakened, she did not even fear having to search a whole field of corn plants at night to shed a light on whatever plot might be behind all this. She looked left and right, concentrated as not to miss anything. Behind her, the corn leaves closed slowly, until she disappeared from Trevis' sight.

The camera operator felt a little queasy as he proceeded. _Just a field of plants_, he kept repeating in his mind as he continuously checked his position on the datapad map. The little light that reached over from the farmhouse was extinguished as the layer of leaves became thicker and thicker behind him.

He had covered a few hundred meters and found nothing so far when he heard footsteps coming from somewhere near him.

"Kim? Is that you?"

"Shh! Of course it's me!" came her hissed reply. "Don't be so chicken! Haven't you done any excursions into the wilderness at school?"

"Yes, I have, and hated them!"

"Well, here's your chance to start loving them, once we come home with a Pulitzer prize on tape!"

* * *

"Now wait, she's just a robot, isn't she? You tell me she has actual feelings?" Landry looked at McCrow, quite incredulously.

"Indeed, there's no other way for me to describe it. Her reactions are so elaborate, they go way past what one would expect from an A.I. that's just simulating emotions. For example, just a minute ago, when she left us, I didn't instruct her to do so, right? Nah, she just lost interest in our techtalk and went to look for something more interesting to do."

"You're kidding, right? She actively decided to leave us, to find something _more interesting to do_? Isn't she a robot with a preset purpose, even if a quite advanced one? I find it a little hard to believe that she..."

He was interrupted by a sudden outburst of giggling warbles coming from the direction where probe had hovered off to. The two roboticists turned to look at what had happened, and saw a probe robot that was frantically wriggling and shaking her fins. It was barely discernible from the distance, but it seemed that a small something was scuttling around inside her neck. A small something that was obviously tickling her like hell.

Landry looked at McCrow and found a wide grin on his face. "I rest my case," the roboticist said.

* * *

Kim was starting to feel a little disappointed. About half an hour after they had started their search she still had found nothing. That is, nothing besides ever-repeating corn stalks and leaves. It was becoming slightly irritating, and Kim pondered that, after this excursion was over, she would not be eating corn for quite a while.

Suddenly a little chime-like sound coming from somewhere nearby caught her attention.

She stopped and listened. Was that noise real, or was she starting to imagine hearing things? The journalist cautiously left the row she was walking on, trying to get closer to the alleged source of the sound. It was no easy task, since she had only heard the general direction, and inside this thick field of corn plants, without useful points of reference, she could easily have missed it.

She marked her current location on the map and started searching the surroundings. There, another chime could be heard, even closer than before, this time followed by a continuous whirring noise. At first she thought it was a service bot, but it appeared to be coming from the ground, and that would be an odd location for a farming robot. She stood still for a moment and moved her head left and right, trying to locate the origin of that low mechanical sound, and started walking slowly in its direction.

Then she saw it.

* * *

"Dave, this is just amazing! I don't even dare imagine how complex her network has become or where this might go in the future. I don't think any other robotics project has achieved something like this so far," Landry said after McCrow had added a few more explanations about how the probe's directive core had become more of an advisor and a list of guidelines for her A.I. than a strict set of rules or programming code. "You're very lucky to be working on this project... with her."

"Yeah, so they keep telling me. I sure tend to agree. I'm lucky, and thankful too. And I'm somewhat worried about the day when I'll have to _let her go_, when she goes on her missions."

"Well, that day will come, but she'll surely always return to you, even if it's just for more tickles."

McCrow chuckled a bit and nodded. He sure hoped that Landry was right. "Alright then, it's getting late. What about a midnight snack at the cafeteria? They got the fat-and-greasy kind and also the green-and-healthy, whatever you prefer."

"Well, I can tell what your white lady would prefer. I think I'll try that too," he replied as they turned around and headed for the base entrance.

* * *

Trevis' datapad was vibrating, signaling an incoming call. He confirmed the pad's query to set up an encrypted channel, and a few seconds later he was listening to Kim's trembling voice. "Kim, what's going on? Where are you?"

"Hell, you won't believe what I found. I'll activate my GPS locator. Track the signal and come over here, quickly!"

The connection was interrupted, and a flashing spot on the map that popped up was marking Kim's location. Whoa, she really must have found something huge, Trevis pondered. He could not even remember the last time when his partner had been so agitated.

Following the direction indicator on his device, Trevis crossed several rows of plants, bending their stalks aside as he went. As the spot on the map that indicated his position approached the one showing his destination, he could hear the whirring noise that had alerted Kim before. He looked around to determine the direction it was coming from. "Kim?" he hissed in a low voice.

"I'm over here!" came Kim's reply. Trevis advanced, crossing two more rows of corn stalks, then he found Kim standing on a little clearing, observing a scene that was simply unreal.

In the center of the clearing there were a few corn plants. Their leaves were lying around them on the ground, partially burned at the point where they had been attached to their stalks. The stalks themselves were no longer straight and green. They were deformed, twisted, and had reddish stripes running all over them that remotely resembled the pattern of human veins. Their cobs, the only thing left that was still attached to the stalks, were inflated and dripped a brownish viscous substance. The whole plant seemed to beg for mercy, to have that terrible treatment stopped.

Near the bases of the corn stalks there was a yellow case lying on the ground, decorated by a BnL logo and the insignia of the Agricultural Survey. That case was the origin of the whirring noises and beeping sounds. Inside it there was a display screen; besides the screen was a small transparent tank, half-filled with a reddish liquid, a symbol indicating _biochemical hazard_ printed on it. A thin tube led from the case into the ground, and the red liquid was flowing through that tube.

Kim and Trevis slowly approached the case, the ground squishing beneath their steps. They looked at the display to read the status messages printed on it.

_Experimental agent #14 being administered. Progress: 67%. Biochemical response: 0.00._

The two looked at each other in shock.

"Trevis, get out your camera and start rolling. Whatever it is the Survey is doing here, it can't be good. Someone will have to answer some definitely inconvenient questions."

* * *

The white probe was curiously regarding the little insect that was still crawling around on her, though now on her fin and no longer inside her neck cavity. It tickled much less this way, for which she was truly thankful.

Such a little creature, she pondered, and yet so active, so full of life.

A thought occurred to her. There was no part of her set of directives that told her to concern herself with little insects that crawled around on the ground, or in this case, over her shell. Was this a part of her training? Of her development? Was she supposed to learn about what it means to be dealing with living creatures? Yes, it might help her with her mission, valuing the meaning of life. Only if you valued life you could understand how important it was to preserve it. Or in this case to extend it, since she was needed in the humans' attempt to bring life to other worlds.

But what about herself? She was a robot, a machine, though from time to time she could feel a little notion stir deep inside of her that there might be more to herself than the sum of her neuronal interconnections and directive core code lines. She liked that feeling, and though she could not explain why, she was convinced that it was a good thing and should be furthered. And that not only because it would be beneficial for her mission.

The insect on her arm moved around nervously, emitting some tiny chirping noises. The probe supposed that it had seen everything there was to see about her fin and wanted to go explore something else. A little smile flickered over her eyes as she lowered her arm to the ground. She could quite relate to that urge to explore. She was looking forward very much to the day when she herself would be exploring the first foreign planet. A whole world of new things to see and new adventures to experience.

As the insect jumped off her arm and scuttled away, she followed it with her eyes until it disappeared under a heap of garbage. Wishing the little creature good luck, she turned around to follow McCrow and his friend into the base.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

Many thanks to **Unreal.2K7** for contributing some chapters, for ideas, brainstorming and proofreading!

A note to the jury of eve94's fanfic contest: don't be surprised that the story ends right in the middle of a plotline. It's work-in-progress, and the whole story is projected for around 150.000 words. According to eve94 it is okay to enter what I have so far into the contest. I hope you liked it. :)


	12. Expansions and Miniatures

**Binary Uplift**

by Locutus

**Episode 11**

**"Expansions and Miniatures"**

(Episode 4 in the plotline **"Shelby's Ark"**)

* * *

  
"Thanks, Wayne, much appreciated," Jacob Ross said in reply to the cup of coffee that his assistant offered him.

Wayne Tannon repossessed the chair besides the one Ross was sitting on, after which they both continued staring at the display screen that was decorated by a paper sticker, reading "Transducer project, do not touch!" They ignored the noisy environment of the Fermilab experimentation room around them.

The lines of analysis data that were dashing across the screen would surely have appeared like random numbers to everybody else, maybe fit to predict next week's lottery numbers, but to the two scientists they bore a much deeper meaning.

"You know, I still can't believe we're doing this. So many months we spent on perfecting the combinational splitting safeguards, and now we're deliberately sabotaging them," Ross uttered with a distinct tone of irritation.

"Yeah, seems odd indeed," Tannon replied. "Though mission objectives tend to change, you know."

"They can change, yeah, but this here feels more like a one hundred and eighty turn."

"I wouldn't see it that negative, Jacob. They're not throwing the Transducer application overboard, they're merely adding some new twists to it. One of which might prove very beneficial, if it works."

Ross pondered. "_If_ it works. Under different circumstances, I'd hope now that they allow us more time for simulation and testing this time. But you heard the man from the Head Office."

"Yeah. I wonder what they need that power generator for _so_ urgently, but as usual, they..."

A querying noise from the computer interrupted him. "Okay, double-check the data please," Ross said. He knew that they could not afford any mistakes; not at this stage of their work and not with the deadline they had been set.

"I'm on it. Though I doubt I'll find any errors there."

A little pressed smile appeared on Ross' face. "As much as people want me to be infallible, I'm afraid I'm not."

Despite Ross' skepticism, Tannon did not find anything wrong with the input parameters they were about to apply, so they instructed the computer to begin the experiment. As the result data appeared a few minutes later, accompanied by a pleasantly sounding confirmation noise, they both once more stared at the screen.

"Holy..." Tannon uttered.

It took Ross a few seconds before he managed to close his mouth. "Okay, this looks... promising, to say the least. Let's call Cameron over here, he needs to see this."

Seems that Preen's new playthings have just gotten within reach of becoming reality, Ross thought.

* * *

  
Thomas West sighed. He knew that this was going to be one of those days where one had better just stayed in bed. Hitting his toe on the frame of his bedroom door, then later dropping his breakfast toast and almost slipping on the wet bathroom floor had been clear indications for that.

Had he known that this had been merely the beginning, he might indeed have considered calling in sick and staying in bed.

But he did not know, so he managed to get through the morning, and turning towards the door to leave for work, he instructed his household robot to clean up the place while he was away. "And Andrew, try to be a little more thorough this time."

The N-DRW models, which was short for _Networked Domestic Robot Worker_, indeed constituted a great help for confirmed bachelors like West was, _if_ they worked correctly. Especially the _networked_ part, which was supposed to integrate them seamlessly into the home automation system, sometimes caused more trouble than benefit.

The robot, which looked like a silvery android on two legs, not too different from a certain protocol droid from a sci-fi movie series that West quite liked, confirmed the command and watched as the botanist stepped out through the door.

"Hello, Mr. West!" a female voice called from behind him as he was approaching his hovercar. Alarmed, he turned around, and his view fell onto a young good-looking woman, in her mid-twenties, who was smiling at him. An oversized handbag was dangling over her shoulder. She appeared vaguely familiar to him, but he could not really remember...

"I'm Kimberly Wells, BnL Network News. Sorry if I startled you."

A frown crossed West's face. "Right, I know you from those TV shows. But how did you find my house? I was under the impression that the Survey does not give out employees' private addresses."

"Well, let's just say I got other sources than the official ones."

"Yeah, I suppose you do. What brings you here then?"

"I'd like to show you something and hear your opinion about it. Look here."

Kimberly produced a small handheld video playback device from her purse. After she pressed a few buttons, the screen lit up and showed a recording of a ghostly scene in a dimly moonlit corn field. Some large deformed plants could be seen, then the camera panned and showed a box on the ground from which some liquid was flowing into the earth.

West's jaw dropped. "What the... How the heck did you get this? No one's supposed to enter the... Now wait a minute."

Looking at the little smirk on Kim's face, a thought came to him, causing his frown to become even more prominent. "You broke into the Shelbington Farm to record this?" he exclaimed in disbelieve.

"Mr. West, please. That would be illegal."

"You're damn right it would. Aside from that, what on this trashy Earth could've given you the idea to break into a _farm_?"

"Well, let's just say that finding said farm sealed off, complete with an armed guard post deployed at its entrance, is fit to arouse a journalist's suspicion. Especially when the post is standing besides a huge 'keep out' sign."

Now it was West who could not stifle a smirk. Then he sighed. "Alright then, since you're here and obviously got your story already, I might as well be honest with you."

"Honest sounds good. Cause, you know, I have this neck for noticing if people are lying to me."

West nodded. He had heard stories that Wells was some kind of living lie detector. She seemed to have the ability to deduce if someone was telling the truth from the subtlest of physical reactions, little body movements or changes in facial expressions, that only well-trained people knew how to keep under control. Being a journalist, that ability was of course quite advantageous.

"Okay then. What you recorded there is just the outcome of a fertilizer experiment. A failed one, as you might have noticed. The feed charge parameters for the deployment box were wrong, having it pump too much fertilizer into the plant, and the result you got there on your video."

* * *

  
Considering the amount of luck that Keith Sageman had been having recently, one might have suspected that he and Thomas West were two entangled quantum mechanical particles which, when measured, always took on opposite properties, no matter the distance between them. From a realistic point of view that was of course quite improbable, not only because Sageman had never met West, which was a prerequisite for quantum particles to _become_ entangled.

Leaving his house in the _Village_, as the main residential area of the Fermilab complex was called, Sageman was enjoying his streak of good luck anyway, even without knowledge about any deeper quantum mechanical background. He headed down along the walkway that led away from the house and towards a larger road on which he would reach the monorail station. From there, a hovercabin would take him along the tracks of the "Batavia Road", which had been an ordinary car driveway in former times, just like the other major roads in the complex.

On his way to work, Sageman once more marveled at the sheer dimensions of the Fermilab campus. The lab premises of his former employer, the CASE institute, had been nowhere as spacious. Fermilab was rather a small town unto itself, covering an area of five by seven kilometers, complete with - aside from the obligatory laboratory buildings and shopping malls - considerable recreational and residential areas. There even were extended parks with lakes, one of which started just beyond the road Sageman was just walking along.

A few minutes later he reached the monorail stop. The cabins were passing by at minute intervals, so no Fermilab employee or resident of the Village ever needed to wait long for a ride. Sageman's ride would take him along Batavia Road and "Road D", past the Technical Division building and the Feynman Computing Center, where his cabin would turn into "Road B" which passed by his destination, "Site 38".

The noise of a signal horn announced the arrival of his cabin. Sageman waited until it stopped and its doors slid open, then he entered.

* * *

  
"Hi there," a voice called and made Sageman look up from the book which he was reading during his cabin ride. A young handsome woman with dark skin and curly hair smiled at him. "This seat taken?"

"No, please, sit down," Sageman replied and took his belongings away from the seat beside him.

"Thanks... Mr. Sageman," the woman said. After a moment of puzzlement, Sageman remembered the ID badge that was decorating his work outfit.

"Oh, right, the badge. Still not used to that," he smiled. "In my old workplace we didn't need to carry those."

"Yeah, took me a bit too. Hmm, Keith G. Sageman. May I know what the G stands for?"

Sageman smirked. "I'm not overly proud of it, but it's 'Gordon'."

"Gordon." The woman looked absorbed in thought for a moment. "Why not proud? It's a nice name. Say, you don't happen to be working in Hazardous Materials Handling, do you?"

There was the second moment of puzzlement. "Uhm, no, Transducer Project. What makes you think I'm in Hazmat?"

"Oh nothing, never mind. You and especially your name just remind me of someone I used to know, and who did happen to work there."

Gordon smiled. "Okay then, Miss..." He noticed that the young woman was not carrying a badge.

"Lance, Alexys Lance. I'm not overly proud of that name either, so you might as well go ahead and call me Alyx, like most of my friends."

* * *

  
The frown had disappeared from West's face and instead had jumped over to Kimberly. She had heard a good amount of lame excuses in her professional life, and 'fertilizer experiment' was just bound to make the top ten list. Regarding West with an expression that radiated skepticism, Kim's gut feeling though told her that he was actually speaking the truth, odd as it may have sounded. And her gut feeling had rarely disappointed her in the past.

Her mind was working swiftly. Should she press the matter? She knew that it depended on her next words whether she would get any further useful information out of her client.

There was another piece of evidence that indicated West was not lying, she pondered. The fertilizer was _so_ bad an excuse, West would for sure have come up with something better had he intended to lie.

She came to a decision.

"Well, Mr. West, I believe you."

"You do?" The botanist on the other hand found it hard to believe that he should be getting out of this so easily.

"Yeah, I do. As I said, I have a neck for telling if people are lying, and I feel that you're not lying." Also, she knew that sometimes a more gentle approach instead of pressure resulted in a more talkative client later on.

"Fertilizer, alright." She looked at the playback device that was still showing the ghostly night scene. "So you set up this contraption to feed fertilizer into the corn plant, and something went wrong?"

"Yes, exactly. As your invaluable journalistic skills have probably helped you find out, we're conducting similar experiments at other farms too. You see, the progressing desertification of the Earth constitutes a problem that we'll have to face sooner or later. The Survey thinks we should be prepared sooner rather than later and improve plant efficiency, since soil quality is bound to decrease with time."

Noticing the frown reappear on Kim's forehead, West added quickly, "But before you get any Pulitzer ideas, we're not there yet, not by far. Current quality levels are still more than adequate, we're just taking precautions here."

Which is, for all we know, actually true, West pondered. And he hoped that Kim's feeling would once more tell her that he was not lying.

And apparently it did. "Okay then, Mr. West. Thanks for your time. Oh, one more thing," she added as West was about to turn around towards his car, "I suppose that, if I were to ask you _why_ you're doing this fertilizer experiment, you'd be forced to refuse statement?"

"Uhm, I was under the impression that I _did_ tell you the reason?"

"You told me _a_ reason, yes, but you didn't really tell me _why_."

West watched with an unnerved expression as Kim smiled, wished him a good day once more and walked away. It took him a while to gather himself and find the keys to his car in his pocket.

* * *

  
"Why, I like 'Alyx', sounds really nice," Sageman said, earning a happy smile from Lance. "Uhm, no badge for you?"

"Nah, I'm not on duty, got a day off. Just taking the monorail to the central lake."

"Ah, I like the lake. Fresh air and the nice woods. There was nothing like that at the CASE institute, where I worked before."

"You transferred over from CASE? Oh, you must have been lucky to get the position."

"Yep, I was indeed. I hear there were like two dozen applicants. Seems they badly needed a quantum physics nerd like me. Where're you working by the way?"

"Well, I'm in the..."

She was interrupted by the cabin's display screen which started showing colorful pictures and had its loudspeakers insistently demand the passengers' attention. _"BnL is your superstore, we got all you need,"_ it blurted out.

"Ugh," Alyx commented, shaking her head. "Tell us something we haven't heard a bazillion times already."

In a prompt yet coincidental response, the display continued by announcing the latest incredible bargain offers that were attainable at the local BnL store, but _only for a short time_ of course.

Sageman chuckled a bit. "I suppose there's no place on this planet where you'd be safe from that."

"No kidding. As I was saying, I'm in the Feynman Computing Center. Responsible for that the scientists get their data when they need it and so on. You know, 'If all is fine, you're never met. If something breaks, they'll have your head.'"

"That sounds like it could be the global system administrators' mantra," Sageman grinned.

"Something like that. It sure helps you to keep your perspective. But don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I really like my job, especially in this fascinating place. What've you been doing at CASE before the transfer?"

"I worked in Astrometrics, researching 'extreme condition' areas in the universe, like black holes and galactic quasars. So to speak the large scale version of what we're doing here with those particle experiments."

"Mmh, sounds... intriguing. I guess. If I'd understand it."

Sageman chuckled again. "Yeah I get that a lot, but..."

Then it was his turn to be interrupted by the cabin's loudspeakers, though this time it was the rather euphonic voice of a female announcer which conveyed a way more useful information than the commercial had before.

_"Now arriving at Site 38 Experimentation Labs. Before exiting the train, be sure to check your area for personal belongings. Thank you, and have a very safe and productive day."_

"Well, I guess this is where you leave me," Alyx Lance said. "One day I'd like to see though what catastrophic accidents would happen here if they didn't have that friendly advice when you reach your workplace."

Sageman replied with a grin, as he was turning towards the exit door, "There's someone I know who's working at the Computing Center, maybe she's in for a little practical experiment?"

* * *

  
With slightly trembling fingers Alexander Trump pressed a contact plate on the door to Richard Wells' office, or rather to its antechamber. It always felt a little like a game of chance when being called to personally appear before the head of Forthright's personal advisors; it could mean a pleasant commendation, but also a serious reprimand.

A little chime sounded and the door slid open. Trump entered and was greeted by Wells' ever-friendly secretary.

"Good day, Mr. Trump. Mr. Wells is expecting you, you may go right in," she said, pointing to the door which led to the Chief Secretary's inner sanctum.

Trump nodded. A lump in his throat prevented him from uttering the polite reply he actually had in mind, so he just walked towards the door which opened automatically.

Inside the office, Trump's face became an even paler shade of white as he realized that, besides Wells, Barnaby Serkis was sitting there, mustering him as he approached the small conference table. This can't mean anything good, he pondered.

"Hello, Mr. Trump. Thanks for joining us on such short notice," Wells began. "Please, sit down. We have something of significant importance to discuss. But first let me emphasize that everything you're about to hear is to be considered top secret, do you understand?"

Trump nodded again, this time overcoming the lump and articulating a pressed "Yes, Sir."

"Very good," Serkis took over. "Mr. Trump, can you tell us what the current progress of Operation Cleanup is?"

Slightly confused, Trump pondered. The Chief Secretary surely had not requested a personal meeting just for a status report. "Uhm, it's going very well, with the Transducer technology we'll easily manage to complete the operation before the deadline."

"Good, good," Serkis replied. "But I need to tell you that in fact you are _not_ going to meet your deadline."

"I'm sorry, Sir? All progress estimates show that by the end of the five year cruise all the trash will be cleaned up and processed into raw materials."

"That may be so, yet still you are not going to meet your deadline."

Wells smiled a little as he noticed the expression of increasing bewilderment on Trump's face. "You see, we need a reason why our cruise ships will possibly need to stay in space longer than assumed. And we came to the decision that an Operation Cleanup that's unfortunately not going perfectly according to plan is the best reason, in several respects."

"If I may ask, _why_ would the ships need to stay in space longer than planned?"

"Yes, you may ask. You need to understand the whole extend of the problem we're facing. There is another crisis going on, Mr. Trump, a way more serious crisis than some heaps of trash in the streets.

Earth's food vegetation is decaying, for as of yet unknown reasons. First estimates show that our food reserves will last for about a year, and that's it. We're currently taking measures to prevent a catastrophe. Those measures though rely on a, let's say, quite wild plan, which has a probability for failure that's definitely larger than zero. And in case of failure, we need the cruise ships to stay in space."

Confusion had turned to alarm as Trump listened to Wells' explanations. A suspicion formed in him as to what Wells was aiming at. "And you need the ships to stay in space, because..."

"Because we need to give our race, our species, a chance to survive. Even if it is just the one percent of our population that is currently on those ships. If our endeavors to avert the food crisis fail, the cruise ships will become, for the second time in mankind's history, our Arks."

Even though Wells' words confirmed his suspicion, he still could not believe what he was hearing. He hoped intently that he had misunderstood. "But... but... Sir, you can't... actually be planning to..." he stammered.

Then he fell silent, horror-stricken. Looking into Wells' and then Serkis' face, he knew that he had not misunderstood.

The circle of initiates to _Operation Shelby's Ark_ has just been expanded, Serkis pondered. And seeing Trump's appalled face, he hoped that they had made the right decision to inform him. He hoped that the circle would not eventually be growing beyond control.

* * *

  
Keith Sageman entered the lobby of the main building at Site 38. Christine Shore, who was sitting behind the receptionist's desk, greeted him heartily.

"Hello Gordon! Ready to start your third week?"

"Hi Chris! Yep, all set and ready," Sageman replied with a little smirk. For some reason, the receptionist seemed to like his second given name better than "Keith", in contrast to him, but he did not really mind. "I wasn't aware though that you're keeping record."

"Only for employees that I sufficiently like."

Mmh, the second woman today that seems to be fond of me, Sageman thought. Maybe he could find something more than just a new job on this campus.

He was about to pronounce a witty reply when a beeping noise emerged from his pocket. Sageman rolled his eyes and took out a mobile communication pad.

"Yeah, those things never leave you alone, hm?" Christine chuckled.

"Indeed they don't." The device showed a message from Cameron Preen, the leader of Sageman's research group, requesting that he join him in the Lambda Lab as soon as he could. "It's from Preen, and he made it sound very important. Nice talking to you, maybe we can meet later in the cafeteria?"

"Sure thing," the receptionist smiled and pressed a button that allowed Sageman to proceed through the security door.

A few minutes later the physicist was on his way to what was called the "Lambda Lab". It seemed a little odd that the largest lab in the building had been labeled with the eleventh letter in the Greek alphabet, but Sageman figured that the naming had to have historical reasons.

For several weeks now the Lambda Lab had been assigned to the Transducer Project, or rather to a particular sub-project. Its original intention had been the well-directed conversion of elements into one another using anti-gluon and anti-electromagnetic technology. They served to overcome both the binding and repelling forces between protons and neutron in atomic nuclei, thus inducing arbitrary nuclear fission, or fusion, at room temperature. Great care had been taken that no excess binding energy could escape during this process, which otherwise might have resulted in a catastrophic explosion.

Now there had been a new directive from the BnL Head Office. Apparently, the scientists at the CASE institute were in desperate need of a highly efficient power source, and the obvious path to follow had been to modify the transducer technology. Now it was their aim to allow small amounts of binding energy to escape during the matter conversion. Keeping this energy release under control though had proven to be even more difficult than making sure that no energy could escape at all.

Theoretical and practical working groups were collaborating closely to achieve results as quickly as possible. In the Lambda Lab, a small transducer device had been retrofitted into an experimental reactor, and the theory people had set up in the Delta Lab, brooding over simulation procedures to determine the correct operational parameters.

Approaching the large sliding doors to the Lambda Lab, Sageman could already hear the agitated voices of the scientists working inside. The doors opened automatically, and he found a crowd circling Cameron Preen and Jacob Ross assembled around a computer console.

_"Simulation complete. Energy release estimated in excess of 3*10^21 J. Stability factor rated at 99.63%."_ the last line on the display screen read.

"Are you positively sure about these results? Ten to the power of 21 Joules?" Preen asked. "I mean, given your input parameters for conversion rate and duration, this energy release lies in the magnitude of nuclear fusion efficiency inside a star's core!"

"Yeah, I know, I couldn't believe it myself. So we repeated the simulation twice before coming here. To the best of our knowledge, the results are correct. My suggestion is to feed the parameters into the prototype reactor and keep our fingers crossed."

"I don't know, keeping fingers crossed sounds a little reckless, maybe..."

Ross interrupted his colleague with a chuckle. "Now what's this. The great 'power-up first, check the math later' Cameron is actually getting cold feet?"

"Hmph. And that from you, Mr. 'simulate until the sun goes white dwarf'. But I suppose you're right. Simulations will only get you so far."

At that moment, Preen finally noticed Sageman who had approached the crowd. "But before we flip the switch, I'd at least like Mr. Sageman, a new and quite competent member of my working group, to double-check the figures." Then he added towards Ross, "And, well, if he gives his okay, maybe we have _him_ flip the switch, so if Fermilab goes up in smoke, it's at least not us who's to blame."

* * *

  
Kimberly Wells' fingers were trembling significantly less than Trump's had before, although she was about to press the doorbell button on the very same office door.

"Oh, hello Kimberly," she was greeted by the secretary. "I'm afraid Mr. Wells is having a private meeting at the moment. I can't let you in, but it shouldn't take too long. Please, have a seat."

"Hi! Thanks. It's okay, I'll wait here. Even if it takes the rest of the day."

"Quite determined to get this interview, huh?"

"You bet. The documentary is due tomorrow, and Richard is the only person left that I need to talk with. So no, I'm not leaving empty-handed this time."

"I can quite understand that. I'd ask him if I can let you in, but he explicitly told me to allow no interruptions." And she added, in a whisper, "I know I shouldn't talk to you about this, but it seems that important things are being discussed in there."

Kim chuckled. "Yeah, I can quite sense the aura of secrecy around this office even without that bit of information. But anyway, if you feel like divulging some more..."

"Good heavens, no, I rather not. You know what it means if they catch me babbling with the media." She moved the edge of her hand along her throat.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna pressure you," Kim pacified her. She was not going to risk friendships for a story.

Voices could be heard from beyond the door to the Chief Secretary's office, and to her surprise, Kim could make out at least three individuals. Two of them seemed agitated, the third sounded rather obedient and insecure. Some nice chewing out must be in progress in there, she pondered. Poor guy, whoever it is.

At that moment, the door opened, and a thoroughly white-faced Alexander Trump appeared in its frame. A familiar voice, though not that of Richard Wells, could be heard from beyond the door which made him turn around again.

"Please remember, Mr. Trump, we shall inform you about the progress of Operation Homestead, and you will please adjust your course of action accordingly."

"Yes, Sir," said the figure in the door frame with a quavery voice.

"Thanks, that will be all for now," the voice from behind him said. Trump turned around. The expression on his face revealed that he was definitely not his usual self as he paced, barely noticing Kimberly and without another word, out of the antechamber.

"Alright, I'm not sure if I actually want to know what happened in there. And coming from me, that means a lot," Kimberly remarked apprehensively.

"Yes, well, anyway," the secretary muttered, "I suppose Mr. Wells is available now." Looking into the journalist's eyes, she added, "Good luck, Kimberly!"

Kim nodded, and as she walked towards the still open door, she wondered if she actually needed good luck.

* * *

  
It had taken Keith Sageman several seconds, a period of significantly increased heartbeat and a good amount of transpiration before he had noticed the broad grin on Preen's face. After the compulsory "don't you ever do this again", he had checked up on the simulation data. An excited nod and a "thumbs up" later, they had moved on to put their theoretical results into praxis.

They were assembled around an experimentation setup in the Lambda Lab, consisting of a large table and a rack which housed, among multiple control and support instruments, the modified transducer. The device was glowing in a blue, beautifully pulsing light, and on the table sat an array of incandescent light bulbs.

Anyone who was not aware of the moment's significance would probably have been quite puzzled to watch a group of highly qualified scientists, staring at a number of illuminated objects which constituted an invention from over 200 years ago.

"Where the heck did you get those bulbs, Cameron?" Jacob Ross asked. "I thought incandescents have been banned for like a hundred years?"

"They have indeed. But we always keep an amount of those in storage. For tests like this here, there's no better ohmic resistor that even gives off a visible confirmation of electricity flowing through it."

That confirmation was very visible indeed. The brightly glaring bulbs were powered by the transducer, and Sageman, who was checking up on the diagnostic messages printed out by a nearby computer console, was visibly excited about the efficiency of their prototype.

The transducer was configured to fuse nitrogen atoms, of which there were more than enough present in the air, into silicium. They had chosen the device's parameters so that the binding energy was released in form of infrared photons, or, in layman's terms, as heat.

Connected to the transducer was a sophisticated energy converter which was able to transform the heat directly into electricity, with an efficiency of over 99 percent. A part of that electricity was used to power the whole apparatus itself, the rest went into the light bulbs. Therefore, as long as there was sufficient nitrogen present, they possessed a virtually inexhaustible energy source.

"Analysis shows a mass loss rate of one per mil for the nitrogen during fusion," Sageman reported. "That's what the calculations had shown, and it actually seems to work. This is so amazing! This is the famous 'E equals m c squared' in its full splendor, right here on our lab table."

Wayne Tannon was watching over several readouts that informed him about the transduction process. "Nitrogen intake is stable at 0.01 micrograms per second. Energy output relation is stable too, and just high enough to power those bulbs and the apparatus. The self-regulation circuit is working perfectly so far. Keep your fingers crossed, people, but it seems there'll be no going up in smoke for Fermilab today."

"Good for me," Sageman mumbled with a little grin.

"Truly amazing," Ross agreed. "But before we open the champagne, we should do some more tests with the self-regulation. Mr. Tannon, can you please schedule a series?"

"Yes, will do it right away. Allow me one question though," Tannon wondered as he looked at the transducer. "What's with the blue light?"

* * *

  
"Oh, good day, Kimberly, I was not aware that you had an appointment with Mr. Wells today."

"Barnaby?" Kim was a little surprised, though only for a moment, to find Serkis in the office. Then she sneered. "Yes, of course. I should have known that Richard alone couldn't manage to cause _that_ shade of pale I saw on Trump's face. What on Earth did you do to the poor man? Oh and no, I don't have an appointment." She turned around to look at Wells. "I'm just hoping that Richard will see me anyway?"

Wells grinned back at Kimberly. "Well my dear, you just got to be the most obtrusive journalist on the face of this planet. Actually we didn't do anything to Trump, aside from passing on some information."

"That really must've been some information. I hope you'll give me a bit of that too? Cause to be a good journalist, it helps a lot to be obtrusive. Also, remember that it was _your_ bunch here that ordered the documentary in the first place."

"Yes Kim, I know. I'll tell you all you need to know."

"I suppose I shall leave you two alone then?" Serkis wondered.

"No," Kim interjected, "it might be nice to hear some of your opinions too, Barnaby, after all you've been with BnL nearly as long as Richard."

Then she looked at Wells again. "But I got one unrelated question before we start. At least I suppose it is unrelated. Dad, my dear, what is _Operation Homestead_?"

* * *

  
Looking into Preen's and Ross' faces, Sageman knew that the two scientists were at a loss, which made him feel somewhat uneasy.

"Yes, the blue light. It's pretty, isn't it?' Preen joked. "In fact, the actual reason for this effect still eludes us. Our best guess is that it's some kind of radiation that gets transformed into visible light during the transduction process. No worries, there's no danger, otherwise our radiation detectors would go off immediately."

"Hmm. It's quite pretty indeed,' Sageman mused. "Kinda reminds me of the visual effect that high-energy particles cause when they interact with molecules in the upper atmosphere. Like an aurora, but with a different wavelength and dispersion pattern."

"Yeah, you're right, actually there is a similarity. It's also noteworthy that the light only occurs when the transduction chamber is evacuated, as it's the case right now. We'll definitely conduct further research about this, but you know, our timetable's already packed quite full."

"No kidding. When did the BnL guys want to see a first working reactor prototype?"

"By the end of this week, if we can make it," Preen griped. "They said it's okay if we need another week, but I can already hear them ranting if we actually do."

"Damn, it's always the same when working for the government. Why can't they just let us do our job without meddling all the time."

A sudden loud popping noise from the lab table made them all jump. Sageman spun around and saw that one of the light bulbs had burst. "Oh crap," he uttered.

Preen looked around hurriedly. "Wayne, quickly, check the energy monitors. Keith, get ready to shut the thing down."

While a burst light bulb normally did not constitute any noteworthy danger, it possibly did in this case, since the bulbs were all connected in parallel to the Transducer's output. If one of them failed, the device would produce more power than was consumed, possibly leading to a feedback of energy and finally an overload building up in the circuits.

"I'm on it," Tannon replied and dashed over to the readout displays, just as a low warning noise commenced. "Output flow reception is reduced by 100 Watts, that's just the amount the defective bulb had consumed. Power accumulation is building up at the converter input, temperature is rising. Feedback circuits are operational and trying to regulate the flow."

"I'm ready to pull the plug," Sageman announced a little nervously, his hand hovering over a large and prominent red button.

"Wait!" Ross exclaimed. "Just give it a few seconds, give the regulator a chance to prove if it's working."

The mentioned seconds passed while the warning noise stayed constant. A tense silence settled down on the group of scientists, only interrupted by the humming of the devices in the room. Everyone was staring at different display screens.

"Temperature in the reaction chamber still rising. It's approaching upper safety limits."

Sageman's hand lowered slightly, ready to smash down on the emergency shutdown. Little beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. If the regulator was not able to control the reaction, the transduction field would undergo what they had called an uncontrolled Expansion Feedback Loop during their simulations. The field would grow, feeding itself with more and more energy, and eventually transgress the boundaries of the containment chamber.

Whenever that had happened, the simulation had been aborted with the succinct comment "_Scenario failed due to unforeseeable consequences_". And Sageman was not overly eager to learn what those consequences might actually be.

Then, as Ross was about to give the abort command, Tannon spoke up in a tone of relief. "Regulation is working. The Transducer's reaction rate is being reduced to accommodate the changed energy requirement."

"Yeah, I confirm that. My display shows a decreasing rate of mass transformation."

"Phew," Preen said as the short but intense moment had passed. "Despite being the gung-ho practitioner here, I'm usually not overly fond of finding out the hard way whether vital energy flow regulators are working."

"Temperature is decreasing slowly," Tannon reported. "It did work indeed, but we'll need a much more efficient way of feedback regulation. We can assume that in a real-world application, energy consumption will fluctuate a lot more than here with some bust light bulbs."

"I agree," Preen said. "We'll squeeze that into our timetable. I also guess we just witnessed the real reason why incandescent bulbs were banned in the first place."

* * *

  
Richard Wells could not decide whether to frown or to smile. "Barnaby, remind me to have not only my office, but also the antechamber locked next time."

"It's too late, dad, and you know it," Kimberly interjected with a grin before Serkis could reply.

Richard sighed. "I sure do. Operation Homestead is just a little BnL project we're currently working on, but be assured, it's nothing of sufficient importance as to open your evening news with it."

Kim knew that her father was one of the few people who were able to dodge both her questions and her ability to detect lies. Looking at him, she could read in his face that he was quite determined to not answer any further questions concerning Operation Homestead at the moment, and she knew that it would not make any sense to try and pressure him about it. "You do know how to deal with journalists, don't you?" she smiled.

"Yes I do, and it would seem that those journalists I hold most dear always give me the hardest possible time," Richard replied, throwing Kimberly a caring glance. "Well then, what is it that you need to know from me for your documentary?"

Kimberly produced a datapad and prepared it to take notes. "I'm as good as done, but I still need some background information on Operation Cleanup. First, can you tell me what its current progress is? Trump didn't seem exactly relaxed when he left just before."

"Oh, you know, it always creeps people out to have an 'audience with the inner circle'. Between his trembles and anxiety, he reported that Operation Cleanup is running perfectly as scheduled." His voice took on an undertone like that of a salesperson as he continued, "The cities where the trash situation is worst have gotten the highest priority in terms of WALL-E unit and Transducer assignment. Soon we will have our cities back, good as new."

"Yeah, I see, good work there with saving the Earth, Dad," Kim chuckled. She had stopped taking notes in the middle of Richard's little speech. She knew that his way of talking with her like a BnL official might talk with a customer was a result of what one might call his 'professional deformation'. It did not overly disturb her anymore, though she could not resist making that little joke.

She gazed at Serkis as she continued, "Barnaby? Anything to add from your view?"

"Nothing of relevance. Your father is right, everything's going according to the CEO's plan."

"Okay, thanks," Kim said with a trace of doubt in her voice. "Speaking about the CEO, might it be possible to get a quick interview with Shelby himself? Or is he, as usual, way too busy?"

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid he is," Richard apologized, feeling a little uneasy. "You know, stressful times, a lot on his mind. It's been a long time that I myself have seen him in person. What we need to discuss, we do via video conference."

Kim glanced at her father. She had noticed the little sign of uncertainty, which she found odd, since it happened very rarely, and her question had not really been one to get anxious about. Taking some notes, she decided to not dwell on it for now, but to save it as a possible trump card for later.

"Okay then, another question. We know that the unification of government and commerce was done to face the trash crisis, but what are BnL's plans for the future? Is the former version of political government going to be re-established? Meaning, will BnL give up at least part of its ultimate power, to put the voter back in control?"

Richard was baffled at the question. He had actually never thought about this matter; he somehow had silently assumed that BnL's temporary rule would sooner or later become permanent. Also, he pondered, if push came to shove with Operation Shelby's Ark, there would be barely anything left on the Earth worth ruling over.

"This kind of thing is within the competence of the CEO alone, Kim, you know that. We can advise him what the best course of action might be, but ultimately, it's not up to either of us to decide. So I must refrain from making any statement..."

"Come on, dad," Kimberly interrupted with a trace of impatience in her voice. "It's me you're talking to. I'm not looking for an official statement from BnL, just tell me what _you_ think would be the right thing to do."

"I'm not talking with my daughter at the moment, but with a journalist," Richard responded in a calm but firm tone. "If I tell you my opinion, and you're going to use it in your documentary, it _is_ an official statement. My responsibilities here towards the CEO and all the people under BnL's supervision don't allow for such a thing, please understand that."

"Yes, yes, you're right, I'm sorry," she acknowledged. _But with the phrasing 'people under BnL's supervision' you maybe gave me an even better trigger for my story_, she pondered. "I just figured an outlook on the future might be a nice ending for the documentary. But I suppose I'll come up with something else worthwhile."

"As long as you don't invent something that might pass off as not completely unrealistic," Serkis commented, laughing. "Which is, rumor has it, what you journalists often resort to?"

"Yes, Barnaby, in fact I might. I'd rather write the truth though, if those who possess it just threw me a bone," Kim answered with a slightly aggressive glance towards Serkis. "But don't worry, the work is going to be finished one way or another. As I said, I'll come up with something, maybe a paragraph or two on how BnL is going to cope with the new situation concerning food production."

* * *

  
"Well, that was a close shave, if there ever was one."

After the rather breathtaking generator experiment, Sageman and Tannon were having a relaxing stroll in the garden behind Site 38's main building, trying to catch the breath they had lost.

"A close shave?" Tannon asked. "That wasn't a close shave. You should have been here when we were analyzing those odd stony remainders of that meteorite last year. _That_ was a close shave."

"Uh-huh," Sageman mumbled and figured that he was not really eager to hear details about even closer shaves at the moment. Still he could not refrain from making a comment. "Lemme guess. You came about 2 nanometers from imploding our planet into a black hole?"

"Naah, that was about a century ago, when those poor jerks played with their particle accelerators and smashed things together that rather should stay safely apart."

"Right, I've heard about that. How did Ross put it? 'Power-up first, check the math later'?"

"Very much so. Problem back then was that they didn't really have any math, much less an idea, about what they were doing. They were rather like kids in a sandbox, eager to see what happens when they quantumize-this, hadron-collide that. Said sandbox of course spanned the whole Earth."

"Well, good for us all then that they failed, I guess."

"Indeed, though they can't really take credit for that. They merely got lucky. You know, when they were about to fire up that enormous collider in Central Europe, it was thanks to their rather sub-standard construction work that their liquid helium cooling system leaked. They had to shut the whole thing down before they could do any actual experiments. Luckily, before they managed to fix it, some smart guys actually did figure out the math on what they were about to do, and they pulled the plug just in time. Otherwise the Earth would now be, well, matchbox-sized."

"And telling me all this is supposed to reduce my current stress level how?"

Tannon chuckled. "Well, it's rather supposed to get you an idea of what you've gotten yourself into when you transferred over here from CASE."

"Yeah, actually I'm beginning to question my decision already," Sageman grinned. "By the way, you seem to know quite a bit about the events back then."

"History of Quantum Physics is kind of a hobby-horse of mine. I'm always hoping that it might serve us well some day, not repeating past mistakes. Though that generator test today kinda has taught me differently. Anyway, what's going on at CASE at the moment? As luck would have it, robotics is another of those hobby-horses."

* * *

  
Richard and Barnaby felt as if their blood had been quick-frozen. Was she just speculating, or did she actually know about the food crisis? If she did, they would have a major disaster on their hands, Richard thought. But if not, they needed to play it down as not to give her any confirmation that she unwittingly was onto something. Resorting to his ability to act both surprised and amused, he asked "Food production? Is there any situation I should be aware of while you shouldn't?"

"If there was, you sure wouldn't be the first person I'd tell," Kim smirked. "No, I was talking about the climatic changes in the last century. You know, the reasons why we have a centralized food production system now. Few huge farms now compared to countless little ones before."

The two men started breathing again, while Kim luckily did not notice that they had stopped doing so in the first place. "But you don't need us to tell you anything about that, Kim. You can find information on that in every history book," Richard commented, doing his best to mask his feeling of relief.

"Yeah sure, I know. I mentioned it cause I was hoping that you'll maybe tell me something about Operation Homestead. Judging by the name it sounds like it might be relevant. And since you said it's nothing of sufficient importance, you might as well tell me a bit about it, so I have something to work on. After all, BnL has always been one for telling names. I mean, Operation Cleanup, Operation Repopulate, Operation Global T..."

"Yes, dear, I get the point," Richard interrupted. Looking at Serkis he noticed that his co-advisor was only apparently calm. _Damn it_, Richard thought. Once more he had forgotten his intention not to underestimate his daughter's cleverness anymore. _Like father, like daughter,_ he thought, a little smile crossing his face.

"Kim, you know that some of BnL's operations need to be carried out off the public record, even if they are of no real importance. It's a matter of sensible information leaking out and exposing our employees to potential security risks. There are always those who might try to subvert our work."

Kim's voice had adopted a distinct undertone of irony. "You're right, I can see that you're taking a huge effort to employ security measures, having put the country's farms under top secret investigation and armed posts placed at their entrances. Strange though, what kind of incursion are you expecting to occur at a farm?"

Richard could feel the situation slowly slip out of control. Kim was like a tracking dog when it came to detecting lies, and he was quite confident that she knew more than she was showing. Calling forth all of his skills and everything he had learned and experienced about deceiving people in his days in office, he started improvising.

"Alright, Kim, let me explain. Operation Homestead requires this kind of measures, so that people don't jump to the wrong conclusions about what we're doing there. As you know, the farms are located in certain areas that are somewhat sheltered from the elements. As the climate grows worse, they're inevitably gonna be reduced in dimensions. Initially they were able to provide nourishment for the seriously diminished population without any problems. But it's obvious that, given some time, population numbers will rise again, thus leading to a potential under-supply.

"We haven't reached that point yet, but the researchers at the Agricultural Survey have been trying for a while already to locate other regions in which cultivation would be sustainable. But it'll need time, since there are very few suitable spot, and the necessary infrastructure needs to be set up first.

"So they started a secondary project for a medium-term solution. They're trying to increase the level of plant productivity by using experimental fertilizers. Their application though must be carefully regulated as to avoid side-effects for the plants and whoever is going to eat them. This is why we need some secrecy. You know how quick people are with misjudging everything BnL does; and now imagine information leaked out about us conducting experiments on their food, which isn't really true anyway."

Kim sized her father up with an intense stare. She was not exactly sure whether he was making the whole story up, but it mostly made sense, and the part about the fertilizer experiments matched that which Thomas West had told her. The reason was different, though, but she figured that none of them would be telling her the whole truth right away.

"Okay, dad, I understand. I'll do my best then to not be one of those who misjudge everything, and I'll finish my report by stressing that BnL is doing its best to keep us well-fed." She got up from her chair and put her datapad away. "Thanks for the time, dad! Barnaby. Have a nice day!"

"You're welcome, dear. Hope to see you soon," Richard said as Kim turned around and left the office.

"Do you think she believed you, Richard?" Serkis asked.

"Probably not. But at least we have some time now to come up with an actually convincing cover story. Barnaby, as much as I hate saying this, it would be safer for us if someone was checking up on what she'll be doing. Cautiously though; after all, she _is_ my daughter."

* * *

  
"They made you do what?" Tannon laughed.

"Yeah, I'm not kidding here. Robert Springs, one of the guys at BnL responsible for the wellness sections on their space cruisers, actually requested us to build a hairdresser robot model for their ships. A hairdresser! I mean, we're preparing to send probes to other planets, and they want us to build a thing with scissors and combs and stuff. I was like 'No way!', but he was dead serious. That was actually one of the reasons why I quit there."

"I can really imagine. A hairdresser robot. Coming to think of it, it's hilarious, at least if you don't have to build it yourself."

"It quite is," Sageman chuckled. "And have a guess what they were going to name the model."

"I have no idea. But maybe, during beta testing, they might have called it _BRB-R_? As in, 'you hair will _Be Right Back, Rob_'?"

Sageman laughed heartily. "Good call, Wayne. No, actually it's named _PR-T_. Can you imagine that? PR-T. Good lords. And we had to program their voice boxes with just two statements. 'Just a trim?' and 'You look gorgeous!'. I was so tempted to add a third line, 'I suggest you stay away from mirrors for the next three weeks.' You know, if I was one of those poor robots, I'd probably volunteer as a test subject for the 'escape pods' they're experimenting with for the cruisers."

"I'm right with you there, Keith," Tannon agreed, taking a look at his watch. "Shall we go back in and check up on the generator?"

"Yeah, I suppose I'm sufficiently cooled down now, and so should be the reaction chamber."

As they were strolling along the walkway back to the lab building, a tall, slender, middle-aged man carrying a suitcase approached them. As he stepped past the two scientists, he greeted. "Good morning, Mr. Sageman, Mr. Tannon."

Sageman turned around and looked after him. "Any idea who that was, Wayne?" he asked.

"Not really. I've seen him a few times before. I think he's one of the lawyers BnL's legal department has dispatched in case we get sued for our experiments."

"Oh hell... being charged with imploding the Earth. Now that should make a worthwhile fine. It's odd that he knew us. Well, if he's a lawyer, that's probably part of his job."

"Yeah, that suitcase of his is surely full of files, and not just about us."

As they strolled towards the rear entrance of the lab building, Tannon added, "Whoever he is, his short haircut and pale face look like he's had a close encounter with one of your PR-T robots. That blue suit is quite becoming to him though."

* * *

  
Two days later, Kimberly Wells sat down wearily on the couch in her apartment and turned on the TV. Actually she had planned to watch the premiere broadcast of her documentary together with the news crew, but after having worked with the editors through the previous two nights, she would be lucky if she managed to watch it at home without falling asleep.

"_And now, ladies and gentlemen, the BNN History Channel invites you to a special documentary made exclusively by our Kimberly Wells. You're about to learn the amazing story of _Buy and Large - A Rise to Power."

"There we go," Kimberly muttered to herself, a little proud smile showing on her face.

"_B-n-L is your superstore,"_ the omnipresent jingle rang from the TV. "_We got all you need..."_

"I'm sure you do, but right now I don't need anything, even if that's hard to believe. So cut it out already," Kimberly griped.

"_...and so much more._" Listening to the umpteenth repetition of the Buy-and-Large jingle with heavy eyelids, Kimberly wondered if it always had the somniferous effect that she was experiencing at the moment, or if it was just her overwhelming sleepiness.

"_Happiness is what we sell..._" Kimberly rolled her eyes. She would be happy enough already if the damn documentary just started.

"_...that's why everyone loves B-n-L!_" Kim barely noticed anymore that the open-to-closed ratio of her eyes was shifting more and more to the latter. Before the TV show actually started, she had drifted off and entered a realm where she would be creating her own personal fantastic stories.

* * *

  
"Whoa, what was that?" the technician Mike Shea exclaimed as the electrical supply readout he was watching showed a sudden spike in power levels. He and his colleague were doing their shift in the utility room of the Los Angeles CASE outpost.

"Hmm, looked like a power surge. Was surely once again someone who connected a device that can't decide if it wants to draw power or not."

"Indeed, could be. I've heard that McCrow and his team are conducting some experiment with the new probe model's hibernation function. Maybe we should check out if they're okay?"

"Yeah, you go check it out, I'll hold the fort here."

"Will do," Shea said and got up from his chair, heading for the door.

* * *

  
_"Now arriving at the Fermilab Central Lake. Before exiting the train, be sure to check your area for personal belongings. Thank you, and have a very recreational day!"_

You bet I will, Christine Shore grinned as she disembarked the transport cabin. She headed down a small path that led away from the monorail track and took her to the lake's waterside.

The largest lake on the Fermilab complex was located in the center of a circular area which was about two kilometers in diameter. In former times it had housed a subterranean particle accelerator ring. The times of accelerator experiments though had long since passed, so the location was now a large recreational area, with meadows, woods and several expanses of water.

Christine's favorite spot for relaxation was a group of benches close to the lake, where she enjoyed the quiet and the fresh air. As she arrived at that spot, she found one of the benches already occupied.

"Oh, hi there, Alyx! Great to see you here, got a day off too?"

"Hey Chris!" the system administrator replied joyously. "Half a day actually. Need to be back at the Center in an hour. Still got lots of user accounts to manage. Come, sit down."

"Stressful times for you too, eh? Site 38's also busier than an anthill at the moment, with all the hassle about that new power generator. Have you heard about it?"

Lance nodded. "It's the topic talk of the day in the Center too. I don't understand most of the tech part, but it seems like fascinating stuff."

"It sure is. Been a while that I last saw my colleagues so excited. But aside from work, how's life going? Still on the lookout for a male companion?"

"In fact, yeah, I am," Alyx chuckled. "There're quite some candidates around here, but it's a little hard to find the time even for some basic flirt."

"Tell me about it. There's a new physicist at my Site, Gordon Sageman, he seems very nice."

"Yeah, I agree. I met him on the train recently." Alyx looked at her friend. "Do I sense some competition arising there?"

Christine looked back at Alyx with a grin. "Well, we'll see about that. But if push comes to shove, I bet your user account management tool won't be any match for my gluon gun!"

* * *

  
As Mike Shea entered the CASE engineering lab, he found something that he considered a distinctly deviant scenario. Jeremy Stone, the lead engineer, and a number of his colleagues were assembled in a half-circle around an odd couple: The head roboticist McCrow was standing there, holding a white probe robot's fin-shaped arm appendages in his hands, and looked deeply into her blue, curious eyes. With a skeptical expression on his face, Shea stepped forward.

"Ahem. Excuse me please, I'm sorry if I'm interrupting the vows here, but we registered a power level spike in the electrical system. And... well, actually I wanted to ask if everything's okay in here..." He looked at the joined human and robot hands as he added, "From a technological point of view, that is."

Both McCrow and EVE turned around and looked at the technician, then down at their hands. McCrow started to chuckle, while EVE raised up one arm and propped it against her imaginary mouth, her eyes showing an amused expression.

"Nah, Mr. Shea, no worries. We weren't planning to get married. Although, given the recent development, EVE here might indeed one day do so, if she finds the right robot." The white probe's eyes showed a little embarrassment as McCrow continued, "The power surge you registered was also part of said development."

"Oh.. okay? What happened?"

"It's too long a story to tell in a few sentences, but the result nevertheless is that good old Darwin's list has just been expanded. EVE is the first individual of a new species, the _Automato sapiens_."

"She is?" Shea's voice sounded utterly incredulous as he turned to the robot. "I mean, you are?"

EVE looked back at the technician, her sparkling blue eyes showing a calm but lucid elation. She nodded gently. _"I'm alive,"_ came her warbling voice.

* * *

  
Alyx half-frowned and half-chuckled. "Gluon gun? What's that supposed to be?"

"I've heard that they're planning to conduct a little side-project to turn the new power generation method into a weapon."

"Hmph. Lemme guess, that rubbish must come from the BnL military guys."

"I suppose it does. Anyway, we'll sure reach some kind of agreement concerning Gordon."

"Sure thing. Nothing a good old mud wrestling match wouldn't settle."

They were both still laughing heartily when they suddenly heard a soft whirring noise. Sounding like a swarm of bumblebees, but more mechanical in nature, it was coming from the nearby tree line just across a meadow. It started out barely noticeable and slowly became louder.

Chris looked up. "Do you hear that too?"

"Yeah, it's coming from the trees. Sounds strange."

"Reminds me of someone playing with a remote-controlled airplane or so."

They looked intently in the direction where the noise was coming from. Then they could make out multiple little flying objects approaching them.

"What the..." Alyx muttered. The two women spotted four small, white, oval-shaped somethings flying through the air which quickly came closer.

As they whizzed past, Chris and Alyx recognized that they were little airborne robots, about 15 centimeters in length. Three appendages were making up a head and two fin-shaped arms, with a small black spot decorating the head part.

It only lasted for a few seconds, then the flying objects had disappeared from their sight. They looked at each other, an incredulous yet amused expression on their faces.

"Okay. Either I'm hallucinating, or I just saw four egg-shaped robots fly past. Please tell me you saw them too."

"I did see them too," Alyx responded. "And I too am wondering what they were. I've never seen that type of robot model before, have you?"

"Nope, not that I remember. I think I've recently heard someone talk about an egg-shaped model, but that's all."

While Chris was still talking, the whirring noise suddenly made itself heard again, from the direction where the four robots had disappeared.

"Listen, seems they're coming back!"

"Yeah," Chris said and gazed, "But I can see only one spot this time."

* * *

  
"Shh, Trevis, get this thing out of here!" a camera operator hissed.

"Oh damn, I'm sorry, forgot to turn it off," Harry Trevis muttered, silenced the beeping alarm of his communication device and quickly dashed out of the newscasting studio. A red flashing sign above its door declared that a news show was currently "On Air".

Trevis accepted the incoming call. "Yeah, what is it?"

"Mr. Trevis, this is Mike Shea from the L.A. CASE base. I've been trying to reach Miss Wells, but she's not answering my calls."

"Yeah, she went home early today, she's had two nights packed full of work. Can I help you maybe?"

"I suppose you can. You see, Kimberly has helped me out of some serious snag before, and I've promised that I'd repay her with a nice story should the opportunity arise."

"Sounds good! So did it arise?"

"Oh hell yes, you bet it did!"

* * *

  
Indeed it was only one of the little robots that came dashing back, but instead of zipping past the two astonished scientists, it slowed down and came to a halt, hovering just in front of them.

Now that they could take a closer look at it, they noticed that the black spot on its head was in fact a tiny display screen. It showed two blue ovals, as if the robot was looking at them with curious eyes.

"Aww, this thing is cute! I wonder where it came from," Alyx said.

Chris smiled. "Yeah, really cute. Look, its appendages are held in place by forcefields! And it's got a gravitic drive, look at it bobbing up and down. This is very advanced tech, way too sophisticated to be a stray toy or something."

"Hmm," Alyx muttered and raised her arm, approaching the robot with her hand. She brushed over the front side of its white shell with a finger, then carefully lifted up one of the tiny fin-like arms. The robot wiggled a bit, and the eye display momentarily changed its shape to something that resembled a smile. A giggling noise, modulated in a warbling female voice, emanated from it.

"It's reacting," Chris beamed, "And it's got a speech synthesizer."

"Yeah, and if I'm not mistaken, she just giggled," Alyx acknowledged, unable to stifle a little chuckle herself.

"What's your designation and directive?" Chris asked the little robot.

Her eye display flickered, confirming that she was processing the input. _"Designation: Daryl. Directive: Follow flight pattern,"_ the warbling voice announced.

* * *

  
_"The lido deck is now closing. The lido deck is now closing."_

With a few strokes, Jennifer Ivy completed the last lane of her relaxing swim. After the very successful presentation of the autopilot robot model design, she had earned herself a one-week holiday trip on one of the more luxurious BnL starliners, the _Infinity_. _Infinite fun for less than infinite money_, the commercials had said. And so far, Jennifer's expectations had been more than fulfilled, especially because she did not have to pay _any_ money for it.

She climbed out of the pool and walked to her canvas chair. Just as she reached it and settled down for a little nap before the ever-annoying "no splashing, no diving" bot would complement her out, she heard a beeping noise emanating from her sports bag. With an annoyed grunt she reached into it and produced a small communication device.

There she was, half across the solar system, and still not safe from her workplace, she pondered as the display told her who was calling.

"Mike, if this is anything short of a catastrophe, I'm gonna hang right up again."

"Hey Jenny. Not exactly a catastrophe, but I'm quite sure you'll still want to hear it. You know, there's that plant evaluator model you designed the chassis for, right?"

A little uneasiness made itself felt. "Uh-oh, what happened to her? Don't tell me they trashed her, like that out-of-control massage bot? I can still hear Mendez' rant when he found his hovercar..."

"Nono, nothing like that. On the contrary. She's received a promotion. So to speak the highest promotion a robot can ever hope for."

"Mike, if you don't want me to strangle you right through this hyperspace connection, you're gonna tell me..."

"Hey hey now, calm down, Jenny," Michelson chuckled. "What will your little white baby think of her godmother?"

As Michelson continued his explanation, Jennifer wondered if the Captain might turn the ship around right away if she were to ask really nicely.

* * *

  
"Daryl, hm? Interesting choice, a male name for a female voice," Alyx wondered.

"Yeah, sounds a little strange, but I think I've seen _Daryl_ as a female name too. Anyway, it quite fits. So, Daryl, your sole directive is to follow a preset flight pattern?"

The little robot nodded.

"Odd, why would anyone build such an advanced model and give it no task but to fly around?"

"Yeah, and even more so," Chris comtemplated, "fly around on the Fermilab campus. Daryl, why did you leave your sisters and come back to us?"

The robot's eyes took on a sad expression. _"Lost,"_ she trilled.

"Lost? You mean you lost your companions?"

Daryl shook her head. _"Daryl lost. Path incorrect."_

"Hmm. Her flight pattern must have been misprogrammed, and she can't find the way back home," Alyx pondered.

The little robot nodded several times.

"Really odd. Daryl, do you know where your flight path originated?"

_"Site Thirty-Nine."_

"Site 39 here on the Fermilab campus?" Alyx turned to Chris. "That's right in the neighborhood of your workplace, isn't it?"

"Yeah, correct, I know its location. It's just across the road that runs past our main labs building."

At those words, Daryl looked up, hopefulness showing in her eyes. Then she stretched out her tiny fins towards Christine. _"Take Daryl home?"_ came her trilling voice, intensified by a pleading eye pattern.

* * *

  
Richard Wells was brooding over some paperwork in his office when his intercom announced an incoming voice transmission. He looked up and pressed a button.

"Wells here, hello Mr. Peterson."

"Good day Sir, please excuse the interruption. I just received a message from Mr. Derring. There has been a certain development concerning the plant evaluation robot that the CASE engineers are building."

"Yes? What is it?"

"Sir, I suggest a personal meeting with the Operation Homestead managers. It is possible that we have a situation on our hands."

* * *

  
A noisy commotion at her apartment door woke Kimberly from her sleep, albeit not right away. With drowsy eyes she got up, only half-aware of where she was, and stumbled towards the door.

"Kim, quickly, freshen up, pack your things and come on down. We need to get to the L.A. CASE base right away!"

"Trevis, what the heck? I'm dead tired here, what's all this about?"

"You remember the white probe robot you did that fascinating interview with? The one that made you play hide-and-seek?"

"Of course, how could I forget her. Such an adorable thing."

"Yeah, that's exactly the point. According to a CASE technician I've gotten off the phone with just ten minutes ago, she's not a _thing_ anymore."

Kim's eyes widened. From one moment to the next, all of her sleepiness had vanished. "What do you mean? Are you saying that..."

Trevis moved his hand through the air in a half-circle, as if presenting an imaginary headline that was printed there. "Robot attains sentience. Is science allowed to tamper with nature's creation?"

Ten seconds later, Kim had disappeared in the bathroom.

* * *

  
"Aww, poor sweetie," Chris smiled and carefully tickled the little robot's arms with a fingertip, earning a joyous trill in reply.

"If I recall correctly, there's an old model airplane field at Site 39. Maybe Daryl was sent out by one of your colleagues with a funny but somewhat boyish hobby?"

The scientist giggled. "I wouldn't put it past them. They can still be boys alright." Looking at the little robot who was watching them curiously, she added, "Just their toys have become way more expensive."

"Okay, little girl, hop on. We'll see if we can find whoever it is that needs a lesson in orientation and navigation."

Alyx held out her arm in a pose one might use to invite a trained bird to land. The robot smiled happily and hovered forward, then clinged onto the arm with her tiny fins.

As they set off along the path to the monorail stop, Chris wondered why Daryl had been the only one of the four robots that had come back to them to ask for help.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

Many thanks to **Unreal.2K7** for ideas, brainstorming, proofreading and contributing some chapters!

Some explanation about the episode's title:

"Expansions" refers to the "Expansion Feedback Loop" the transduction field in the generator might have undergone, the expansion of Operation Homestead's inner circle, and the expansion of Darwin's list by "Automato sapiens".  
"Miniatures" of course refers to the four cute "mini-EVEs".

The episode introduced three characters that are "modelled" after users of the WALL-E Forum. Wayne Tannon is "Wayne", Keith G. Sageman is "Level_Head", and Christine Shore is "Cri86".

The Mini-EVE character Daryl was inspired by "Eppie", a tiny EVE-shaped robot that appears in a little comic series made by "Gryphonworks".  



End file.
